book review kindred

Octavia E. Butler

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1979

About the author

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think? Rate this book Write a Review

Friends & Following

Community reviews.

“The ease. Us, the children… I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.”

“Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free."

She means the devil with people who say you're anything but what you are.

"There’s worse things than being dead."

"I don’t have a name for the thing that happened to me, but I don’t feel safe anymore."

"I can’t advise you. It’s your body." "Not mine." Her voice had dropped to a whisper. "Not mine, his, He paid for it, didn’t he?"

"I'm not property, Kevin. I'm not a horse or a sack of wheat. If I have to seem to be property, if I have to accept limits on my freedom for Rufus's sake, then he also has to accept limits - on his behavior toward me. He has to leave me enough control of my own life to make living look better to me than killing and dying.” "If your black ancestors had felt that way, you wouldn't be here," said Kevin. "I told you when all this started that I didn't have their endurance. I still don't. Some of them will go on struggling to survive, no matter what. I'm not like that."

“The ease. Us, the children... I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.”

“Rufus had caused her trouble, and now he had been rewarded for it. It made no sense. No matter how kindly he treated her now that he had destroyed her, it made no sense.”

“Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of “wrong” ideas.”

Join the discussion

Can't find what you're looking for.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Kindred review – Octavia E Butler’s daring sci-fi novel makes for hit-and-miss TV

The acclaimed author’s book, about a woman traveling back in time to a slave plantation, is transformed into an overlong yet well-acted series

W hen 26-year-old writer Dana (Mallori Johnson) matches with Kevin (Micah Stock) on a dating app, the groggy-voiced white waiter who’d served her a few hours earlier at an awkward family dinner, Dana seems cautiously intrigued. He was cute enough, like a big bashful bear. But seconds after she swipes right, she is subject to an alarming yet predictable note about the kinds of rides that Kevin knows how to give. She shuts off her phone and turns in for the night, only to slip into an even more nightmarish realm than online dating.

Now she’s on a Baltimore slave plantation in the early 1800s. A ginger-haired baby is lying on his tummy in his crib and at risk of suffocation. Dana saves him, then comes face to face with a couple of women holding candles who aren’t sure what to make of this Black woman. Is Dana, an aspiring television writer who just moved from Brooklyn to Silver Lake, an enslaved woman? Is she a ghost?

Kevin turns out to be a keeper, more romantic than his initial correspondence would suggest. He’s a musician, and a reliable and caring escort to Dana’s subsequent travels to the antebellum south in Kindred, the new FX on Hulu series based on Octavia E Butler’s 1979 classic that married science fiction and contemporary romance, and interrogated the legacy of slavery, and interracial relationships. Presenting themselves as travelers, with Dana the property of Kevin, the duo spends time in their new realm witnessing the horrors of slavery and helping the residents of the plantation – enslaved and slaveholders alike.

Butler was a time traveler in her own way, a MacArthur “genius” whose work presaged the climate crisis and the racial reckoning of recent years. A leader of the Afrofuturism movement, which fused science fiction and racial justice, she turned out books that would gain in relevance and renown in the decades that followed her death from a stroke at age 58 in 2006. Parable of the Sower, her 1993 novel about a dystopian future marked by catastrophic droughts and class wars, didn’t light up the bestseller list until the pandemic, when it was belatedly all the rage. Not surprisingly, a slew of Butler adaptations are in the works, including ones by Issa Rae, JJ Abrams and Ava DuVernay. Kindred, brought to us by showrunner and star playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and The Americans executive producers Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, revisits Butler’s story about a modern young woman who must figure out why she keeps slipping back in time.

Though Kindred was set in the 1970s, the creators moved the contemporary strand of the story to present day, which makes for a smoother watching experience. Though her original iteration was a literary writer publishing stories in obscure magazines, Dana is now hoping to break into a Hollywood writers room. Her favorite show is Dynasty, the extraordinarily cheesy 80s soap opera – a clever detail for the new team to drop on. The adaptation of Kindred draws from the soapy tradition, with long pauses and sound effects that are meant to indicate Highly Charged Moment. While the novel is a fever dream that comes in at under 275 pages, the first season consists of eight hour-long episodes, some of which feel sharper than others.

Butler’s dreamy, free-associative style would have lent itself to a more concise form of storytelling. Plotlines have been added and characters have been beefed up, presumably to flesh out the scripts and set up for a new season (the finale ends on a cliffhanger, practically begging for a renewal from the network). In Jacobs-Jenkins’s reinterpretation, orphan Dana now has a mother, as well as two nosy neighbors. Hermione (Brooke Bloom) and Carlo (Louis Cancelmi) are a Karen and a Mr Karen who find life’s meaning in a Nextdoor-like app. The scenes of the couple lifting kettle balls while gossiping about the Black girl who has moved into the neighborhood feel tonally disjointed, and one wonders if their inclusion was a workaround to shooting in a pandemic when bringing more than two actors together for ancillary present-day scenes was too a heavy lift.

Some of the new additions impart welcome dollops of humor but the adaptation falls short when it comes to tapping into the trancelike effect of Butler’s prose. Her book was rife with unforgettably specific details about life as an enslaved person – the master who cuts off a woman’s fingers when he finds her writing, the fly-riddled table scraps for breakfast – but her words also captured a deeper sense of haunting and unease.

The greatest thing the show has going for it is Johnson’s performance. The actor, who was cast for the role while still enrolled at Juilliard, anchors the series with stunning maturity and delicacy. She is soft of voice and and strong as steel, and her presence calls to mind Butler’s prose, sharp-shooting yet always beautifully in flight.

Kindred is now available on Hulu in the US and in the UK and Australia at a later date

• Science fiction TV
• Science fiction books

Most viewed

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

by Octavia E. Butler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2009

Butler is one of those accomplished science-fiction writers ( Mind of My Mind , 1977; Survivor , 1978) who tap out their tales so fast and fine and clear that it's impossible to stop reading at any point. And this time the appeal should reach far beyond a sci-fi audience—because the alien planet here is the antebellum South, as seen through the horrified eyes of Dana, a 20th-century black woman who time-travels in expeditious Butler fashion: "The house, the books, everything vanished. Suddenly I was outdoors on the ground beneath trees" . . . in 1819 Maryland. Dana has been "called" by her white ancestor, Rufus—on her first visit, Rufus is a small child, son of a sour slaveowner—and she'll be transported back to Maryland (twice with her white husband Kevin) to rescue Rufus from death again and again. As Rufus ages (the Maryland years amount to hours and days in 1976 time), the relationship between him and Dana takes on some terrifying dimensions: Rufus simply cannot show the humanity Dana tries to call forth; Dana, drawn into the life of slaves with its humiliation and atrocities, treads carefully, trying to effect some changes, but too often she returns beaten and maimed to her own century. And most frightening is the thought that, in the "stronger, sharper realities" of Rufus' time, Dana is "losing my place here in my own time." At one point Kevin and Dana lose one another (Kevin returns haggard, after five years working to help escaped slaves), but finally Dana, fighting off complete possession by Rufus, kills him and that past forever—but not the memories. There is tremendous ironic power in Butler's vision of the old South in science-fiction terms—capriciously dangerous aliens, oppressed races, and a supra-fevered reality; and that irony opens the much-lamented nightmare of slavery to a fresh, vivid attack—in this searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun.

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-8070-8310-9

Page Count: 264

Publisher: Beacon Press

Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1979

SCIENCE FICTION | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

Share your opinion of this book

More by Octavia E. Butler

BOOK REVIEW

by Octavia E. Butler

More About This Book

BOOK TO SCREEN

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

New York Times Bestseller

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION

More by Max Brooks

by Max Brooks

THE PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE

by Samantha Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 2019

A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.

After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.

No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels ( The Song Rising , 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.

Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8

Page Count: 848

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | FANTASY | EPIC FANTASY

More by Samantha Shannon

by Samantha Shannon

PERSPECTIVES

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Book Reviews

'kindred' dismantles simplistic views of neanderthals.

Barbara J. King

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes Bloomsbury Sigma hide caption

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Neandertals are ancient humans who sometimes mated with early Homo sapiens in Europe and Asia — then went extinct around 40,000 years ago. Yet their genes live on in many of us.

If your ancestry traces back to populations outside sub-Saharan Africa, there's a good chance that your genome includes contributions from Neanderthals. In Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, archaeologist and science writer Rebecca Wragg Sykes explains in splendidly engaging prose why this fact is cause for wonder and celebration.

Neanderthals "possess pop-cultural cachet like no other extinct human species," Wragg Sykes says, but too much of that cachet is constructed from stereotypes. "Neanderthal" is a popular insult, meant to refer to stooped and club-wielding cave people who could hunt pretty well in their Ice Age habitats but were inferior in every way to our own early ancestors. When in the early '90s I began to teach human evolution to college students, even the scientific consensus claimed that Neanderthals, compared to early Homo sapiens , tended to remain locally near their hearth and home sites, eking out a living and incapable of much creativity beyond basic survival.

More than any other book in paleoanthropology I've read, Wragg Sykes convincingly blows up those simplistic views. She describes evidence comprehensively across time (Neanderthals first appeared around 350,000 years ago) and space (Neanderthals lived "from north Wales across to the borders of China, and southwards to the fringes of Arabia's deserts"). The facts show that as innovative tool- and fire-makers, Neanderthals adapted to changing climates. They adopted symbolic cultural practices and expressed profound emotions as they lived day by day.

Of course, Neanderthals didn't look like we do. Their bodies were short and robustly muscled; their skulls featured brow ridges, prominent noses, and an occipital bun (bump) in the back. For years, this anatomy was explained as adaptation to glacial conditions but it turns out that Neanderthals thrived also in steppe-tundra and even Mediterranean woodlands. More than climate, experience sculpted their bodies. Life was "extremely demanding" for them, in terms of making a living. Males and females were doing different things — males' arms for example were asymmetric, suggesting one-handed scraping or possibly spearing, whereas women's lower arms were well-developed, a possible indicator of double-handed hide working.

In describing behavioral patterns Kindred comes most to life, for it's here that our kinship with Neanderthals shines through. The theme Wragg Sykes draws on is one of innovation and creativity — the opposite of those cave-people myths. When it comes to technology, Neanderthals didn't just construct a varied tool kit but also invented composite tools that "imply impressive mental capacity to plan, design and anticipate." They successfully hunted " enormous beasts" including 1,100-lb. horses, but also knew how to take advantage of whatever the regional ecology offered as food, ranging from tortoises to jays and magpies. Judging from how far Neanderthals carried away artifacts from their original sources, individuals moved across as much as 60 miles of the landscape.

Across the millennia are found traces of cultural practices that go way beyond survival. Neandertals incised a hyena bone in ways that suggest an early notation system. The application of color pigment to objects including shells and a geode apparently pleased Neanderthals' aesthetic sense. Wragg Sykes reminds us that classical ideas of art don't take us far enough in appreciating Neanderthals; "sometimes the significance and symbolism may have been in the act of transformation itself." And mysteries remain. What do the elaborate rings that Neanderthals constructed of broken-off stalagmites on the cave floor at Bruniquel in France mean ? We don't know.

Occasionally the writing bogs down in details overly numerous and technical for a wide readership, as when Wragg Sykes describes too many fine distinctions among too many tool types. How you feel about the lyrical introductions she pens to each chapter will depend on your affinity for dense prose like this: "He lingers close to the light of the hearth — fanged ones always follow kills — but his feet dance as the un-made deer arrive on many shoulders, haloed by puffed breath in the frigid air."

Make no mistake, though. What Wragg Sykes has produced in Kindred , after eight years of labor, is masterful. Synthesizing over a century and a half of research, she gives us a vivid feel for a past in which we weren't the only smart, feeling bipedal primate alive. That feel comes across sometimes in startlingly fresh ways. I was entranced by the chapter "Many Ways to Die." Wragg Sykes honors Neanderthal love and grief through describing the burials they planned and carried out. Then she invites us to comprehend a cultural system in which butchery and cannibalism was seen as an "act of intimacy, not violation" and where bodily consumption may have been part of "grief management." Here is mind-expanding popular science!

Why, if they were so competent, cooperative, and cultural, did the Neanderthals die out at the population level? Somehow, they reached a limit to their adaptability. Wragg Sykes thinks it may have been a perfect-storm combination of factors, in which highly unstable climate and competition from Homo sapiens finally proved too much to withstand.Yet to think of the Neanderthals as a failed lineage is plainly wrong: "That the vast majority of living people are their descendants is, by any measure, some sort of evolutionary success."

Kindred tells of another success story, too. "After more than 160 years, we have finally begun viewing Neandertals on their own terms," Wragg Sykes writes. It's about time.

Barbara J. King is a biological anthropologist emerita at William & Mary. Her seventh book, Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild , will be published in March. Find her on Twitter @bjkingape .

• Entertainment
• FX’s <i>Kindred</i> Is a Solid, Long Overdue Adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Masterpiece

FX’s Kindred Is a Solid, Long Overdue Adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Masterpiece

I t is absolutely wild that it has taken nearly half a century for Octavia E. Butler ’s 1979 novel Kindred to be adapted for the screen. Written in Butler’s propulsive, dialogue-heavy style and constructed out of elements—slavery narratives, time travel—that often fuel both prestige drama and genre franchises, the book cries out to be translated into a visual medium. And the same simple, poetic premise that has made it a classic of speculative literature all but guarantees the success of any competent adaptation: Dana, a young Black woman in mid-’70s California, is suddenly pulled back in time to a Maryland plantation in 1819 to save a little white boy from drowning. While her initial disappearance is over in minutes, she’s summoned back, for longer and longer periods, every time the impulsive child puts himself in mortal danger. Eventually, her new, white husband unwittingly accompanies her into the past, where their marriage is illegal.

In an eight-episode first season that will stream in its entirety on Hulu beginning Dec. 13, FX’s long-awaited Kindred doesn’t quite dazzle in the same way that the very best recent novel-to-TV adaptations have done. Shows like last year’s The Underground Railroad (which has Kindred encoded in its DNA) and Station Eleven expanded upon brilliant source material with brilliant audio, visual, and storytelling choices tailored to the small screen. But this series does, for the most part, do justice to the metaphor at the center of Butler’s masterpiece. That’s another way of saying that you shouldn’t miss it.

Writer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a relative newcomer to TV whose previous work as a playwright has earned him a MacArthur “Genius Grant” and made him a Pulitzer finalist, is faithful to the spirit but not the letter of the novel. Working with a team of executive producers that includes The Americans duo Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields as well as filmmaker Darren Aronofsky , he’s wise to update the present-day story to 2022; while the book took place in the bicentennial year of 1976, what’s more salient in this adaptation is how contemporary Kindred still feels, two generations later. In this telling, 26-year-old Dana (recent Juilliard grad Mallori Johnson, with what should by all rights be a career-making performance) is a single aspiring TV writer who has just sold the family brownstone in Brooklyn following the death of her grandmother and bought a house of her own in Los Angeles.

Jacobs-Jenkins makes it hard, at first, to figure out what kind of story the show is telling. The outstanding premiere, directed by Janicza Bravo ( Zola ), moves deftly between genres and moods. It opens on a chilling, flash-forward vignette. We see Dana lying on the floor of her darkened home, wearing only underwear and a bloody tank top, crying out for someone named Kevin. She collects knives from the kitchen, runs a bath and salts the water, gets in the tub without undressing. The cops show up and demand to check on her. It sounds like they’re about to break down the door. Watching the nightmare escalate, you’ll likely wonder if this woman has lost her mind. She hasn’t—and the scenes that follow might lead some viewers to consider whether they’re especially quick to mistake trauma for derangement when the afflicted is Black and female.

Then we meet the smart, charming if unmoored Dana of two days earlier. At dinner with her kind aunt (Eisa Davis) and cranky uncle (Charles Parnell), who are now her only living relatives, she announces that she’s moved to their city permanently and is surprised to find they disapprove of her choice to uproot herself and chase a dream. The meal goes so poorly that she refuses a ride home and ends up in the car with their waiter, Kevin (Micah Stock giving Jake Johnson). So begins the rom-com portion of the program. Almost a decade Dana’s senior, Kevin (who shares a name with Dana’s husband in the novel) is a washed-up indie rocker whose warmth compensates for his music snobbery and tendency to monologue about himself. Gazing out at L.A. from a scenic overlook, they learn that they both lost their parents as kids. When she offers to reimburse him for gas because he’s spent all day driving her around, Kevin protests: “We’re in the orphan club together now. Orphans don’t pay orphans. They barter. With trauma.”

Neither realizes that they’re on the brink of an experience that will make the considerable hardships they’ve already suffered look trivial. This is what makes the initial genre confusion so effective; Dana doesn’t know what kind of story she’s at the center of, either, when she starts traveling back to the early 19th century to save young Rufus (David Alexander Kaplan) from himself. The choice feels true to Butler’s unique novel, too, which is sometimes classified as sci-fi but was considered by its author to be a “ grim fantasy ” and contains all the thematic depth of great literary fiction. For me, Kindred —with its real-world backdrop, fantastical premise, and potent political commentary—comes closest to the brutal beauty of the best Latin American magic realism, which is another reason why it might’ve benefited from more imaginative soundscapes, production design, and cinematography, particularly later in the season.

Still, in moving between the present and the antebellum past, where Dana and later Kevin can only survive by adhering to the norms of Rufus’ parents’ ( True Blood alum Ryan Kwanten and GLOW ’s Gayle Rankin) plantation, Jacobs-Jenkins unearths layers of meaning so elegantly embedded in Butler’s narrative. The big picture is of a nation that, almost 250 years into its existence as such, remains so scarred by the legacy of slavery that it’s always falling through metaphorical trap doors into a violent white-supremacist past. But it’s the details that give Kindred its nuance. Dana’s connection to Rufus invokes the complex history of who Black Americans’ ancestors really were. Among the enslaved characters, there are questions about complicity, rebellion, survival, internecine conflicts—and whether a well-intentioned Black woman from the 21st century can truly know how to help her 19th-century counterparts.

The show alters Dana and Kevin’s relationship in a way that keeps the focus on her, yet like the novel, it identifies a possibly unbridgeable gulf between a Black woman and a white man who otherwise have a lot in common. Can she love him after enduring the horrors that white men (and to an only slightly lesser extent, white women) inflicted on Black women firsthand? Can he live as a pampered guest in Rufus’ home, with Dana posing as his slave, without internalizing a toxic quantity of entitlement? Will these two ever truly be able to understand each other?

Despite the odd overly broad character (see: Dana’s new next-door neighbor, a prototypical Karen) or stiff line of period dialogue (“This rogue would protect his property before my daughter’s honor!”), the writing is solid. Jacobs-Jenkins’ most salient additions to Butler’s narrative are story lines about Dana’s family that seamlessly extend the time-travel allegory. There are plenty of promising places left for the show to go in the event that FX gives it a second season to follow up on the finale’s assorted cliffhangers.

But when Kindred really achieves excellence, it’s usually through Johnson’s extraordinary performance. As a woman adrift in young adulthood and unstuck in American history, she conveys the extremely specific double consciousness of a modern Black woman who must try to bend the antebellum world to her will. From the most harrowing punishments (which the show dramatizes sparingly and, to its great credit, never gratuitously) to Dana’s blissful early hours with Kevin, but most of all in quiet moments when the character is clearly thinking or feeling something she can’t safely articulate, Johnson conjures an entire topsy-turvy universe within a single consciousness. Belated as it is, no tribute to the work of Octavia E. Butler could be more apt.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Coco Gauff Is Playing for Herself Now
• Scenes From Pro-Palestinian Encampments Across U.S. Universities
• 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
• If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
• The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
• Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

Review of Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

by Octavia E. Butler

Over a decade ago, I read Lilith’s Brood . I immediately recognized the power of Octavia E. Butler’s writing, her utter willingness to exploit science fiction to the fullest extent that it can comment on our society. Since then, I have always nodded along and agreed every time someone calls Butler a grandmaster of science fiction and fantasy. She is an icon. But I didn’t read anything else by her.

Kindred is the first of many Butler stories I hope to pick up and finally read over the next few years. It’s time to address this fundamental gap in my science fiction experience!

Moving between 1976 and the early nineteenth century, Kindred is more fantasy than science fiction for reasons I’ll discuss shortly. Dana is Black, recently married to a white man named Kevin, and they are moving in together. She begins to be “pulled” through time to the side of a white man named Rufus—first when he was a small boy, and then progressively as he ages, every time apparently when he is in mortal peril. Dana saves Rufus yet inevitably finds herself trapped in Maryland, at the mercy of Rufus’ abusive, slave-owning father, until time pulls her back to 1976 and a distraught husband. As this process repeats, it takes a toll both physical and emotional on Dana.

It’s a commonplace for people to insist that, were they around in the past during times of great upheaval or injustice, they would definitely be on the right side of history. The trouble with this assertion is that in most cases you wouldn’t be , statistically. You would have been brought up into a society in which an injustice like enslavement would be accepted or at least tolerated, and though many people bristled at it and opposed it, the continuation of that institution for so long points to the social inertia it had. Time travel adds another layer to this mix, for Dana is not a woman of the nineteenth century. As the characters from that time point out, she speaks like a white woman sometimes—too educated, too assertive by the standards of the Black women, free and enslaved, around the Weylin plantation. It marks Dana out as different even from her own people, gets her into trouble. But it also reminds us that she is not someone who grew up with slavery.

On Dana’s first two trips to the past, she positions herself as best she can as free. When Kevin inadvertently accompanies her, she poses as his property. Subsequent trips find her power and autonomy further eroded, as first Rufus’ father and then Rufus himself exploit Dana’s fondness for some of their contemporaries to manipulate her. Dana finds herself compromising or at the very least stretching many of her principles, first as a matter of immediate survival in the past and then as a matter of existential survival—for she realizes that if certain events don’t come to pass, she won’t exist.

I mentioned that Kindred isn’t science fiction, and this is why: there is no explanation for Dana’s time-hopping. There is no how or why, no novum that propels her into the past and flings her into the future. It just happens. There’s no obvious magic here either, though, so perhaps the most accurate label is speculative fiction (I just don’t want to create another tag). In any event, I think this choice on Butler’s part is deliberate and important: Butler doesn’t want us to focus on the time travel itself. That is not the plot; stopping it is a desire of Dana’s but not, ultimately, what this story is about.

This is a story about being pushed to one’s limits, and then being pushed past those limits, and deciding how you respond to that.

I would love to see Kindred turned into a movie or television series, but I doubt this will happen any time soon (we’re just going to keep adapting dead white guys like Isaac Asimov, I guess). American media has an obsession with narratives about enslavement but only through the narrow lens of the white viewer. It’s no coincidence that the most successful movies about America’s enslavement of Black people tend to feature intense violence, white saviourism, etc. The movies offer up the idea of redemption in the form of white people who help the Black characters survive and even escape their wretchedness while at the same time attempting to scourge any lingering guilt through the spectacle of violence: oh, look how bad it was back then, it certainly isn’t that bad now! American history, when it even acknowledges enslavement as an institution, firmly insists it is an artifact of the past, with no connections now to racial inequity or slavery in other forms (such as that of prisoners).

Kindred is not that type of narrative about enslavement. It was very uncomfortable to read this. I don’t want to dwell on my discomfort, because I don’t want to centre myself as a white person—but I do think my position as a white person is important to note when I discuss this book. Butler reminds us that our power as individuals is circumscribed by the state, by culture, by society. When Kevin travels to the past with Dana, he has privilege as an educated white man, yet even he can only do so much. Neither he nor Dana really manages to make any real change on the Weylin plantation. The ending of the novel is grim not just for the physical consequences for Dana as she returns to her present for the last time but also because, afterwards, we learn that the worst had come to pass for the enslaved people on the Weylin plantation. Dana is the protagonist of this novel, but she isn’t a hero. In her desire to survive and perhaps to punish Rufus, she makes life worse for the myriad Black people who live on the plantation (I suppose one might argue Dana is caught in a predestination paradox and lacks free will, but as I said above, that’s not what Butler is trying to explore here).

So this isn’t a feel good story about escaping enslavement. Rather, Butler seeks to challenge the reader (especially, I think, us white readers) to truly think about the daily abuse experienced by enslaved Black people (and even free Black people) in that era and such places as Maryland. She reifies slavery in a way that more glorified portrayals cannot, turning it from a hypothetical idea that we know existed as a part of history into something far more … familiar. For you see, Rufus and his father are abusive AF—and that isn’t any different from people in our time. Ownership of others is no longer sanctioned in the same way that it was in theirs, but abusers like the Weylins can still operate and still inflict harm on vulnerable and marginalized people. Maybe, having experienced Dana’s difficulties and the way she comes to understand the plight of her ancestors, we might also turn our empathy towards those who suffer now rather than blame them for their own suffering.

There’s so much more I could say about this book, so many ideas of race and gender politics that Butler explores. I don’t fully have the words (and I must disclose that I’m writing this review about two weeks after finishing the book, so my memory has already begun to fade). All I can really do is hope that what I have said helps you understand that Kindred is a truly special work. Discomforting in its intensity yet energizing in its brilliance, I admire it especially for being a discrete, standalone work. I know this book already has so much praise, but I want it read more. I want it talked about more. Starting with you.

Share on the socials

Twitter Facebook

Let me know what you think

Enjoying my reviews?

Search This Blog

The running bibliophile.

A blog featuring book reviews, product reviews, places to see, running, history, listography, and more.

Book Review: Finlay Donovan Rolls The Dice (Finlay Donovan, #4) by Elle Cosimano

Book Review: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is the first science fiction novel written by a Black woman and is part memoir, part fantasy, and part historical fiction. The book opens with Dana, an African American woman in 1976 Los Angeles, California, who is transported back to 1815 Maryland and saves a drowning white boy.  However, she finds herself fearing for her life when the boys father, a slave owner, is pointing his shotgun at her.

This is a novel that was selected by the book club I belong to for our September Book Club Meeting.  I had heard of Kindred but had no idea what it was about.  I don't read a lot of science fiction because I typically don't enjoy it.  However, I was pleasantly surprised how intriguing the story was, and it sucked me in from the start.

Well-written.  Engaging.  Unputdownable.  These are just some of the words that I'd use to describe Octavia E. Butler's Kindred .  I find myself still thinking about the book long after finishing it.  The characters were brought to life so well that I felt I was right there with them.  The author does a phenomenal job at showing the reader what slavery was like and what might happen if a Black person from today's time was sucked into an America that still had slavery.  Although this is a work of fiction, it feels like it really happened mostly because of the situations being very real things that took place in American history.  Additional themes in this novel include racism, rape, and suicide.

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog, product review: mr. clean: clean freak deep cleaning mist - gain scent.

Product Review: Naturelle Biotera, Anti-Frizz Intense Smoothing Shampoo & Conditioner

Book Review: Hidden Beneath (Maine Clambake Mystery, #11) by Barbara Ross

By Octavia E. Butler

‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler is a science fiction novel with a historical twist and based upon slavery and the struggle against white hegemony.

About the Book

Article written by Victor Onuorah

Degree in Journalism from University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

With compelling stories and plot lines which have a direct focus on racism and social segregation, ‘ Kindred ’ is one book that is still widely appreciated today. In 2003, the book won the Rochester book of the year award for its impact on racial advocacy.

Key Facts about Kindred

• Book Title : ‘ Kindred ’
• Writer : Octavia Estelle Butler
• Publisher : Doubleday
• Publishing Date : 1979
• Language : English
• Setting : 1976, Altadena, California. 1800s Maryland.
• Perspective : First-person
• Climax : Dana stabs Rufus to death and returns to the present day after he tries to rape her.
• Genre : Science fiction, horror. Historical fiction.

Octavia E. Butler and Kindred

’ Kindred ’ is a very complicated book being that it cuts through multi genres – including history, horror, and science fiction. For the history part, the book details significant events of the antebellum era and the whole madness accruable to typical war times.

The slavery aspect gives the book a bit of a horror angle, and frankly, readers should expect to do more than merely read the text but also have an open mind about feeling the deep pains felt by the victimized characters in the book. From merciless whiplash to forced labor to nonconsensual concubinage down to blatant rape, ‘Kindred’ might easily be passed off as horror.

For the science fiction part, Octavia E. Butler added the time travel plot twist to ‘ Kindred ’ to make it more of a classic sci-fi sub-genre as Dana travels into the past on several occasions at the first sign of danger to her ancestor Rufus.

For Butler, ‘ Kindred ’ is much more than just science fiction but partly a rendition of her experiences and struggles – along with those of her mother and aunties, all because of a social disparity that heavily existed between the different human races and skin colors.

Books Related to Kindred

‘ Kindred’ is a unique book that tackles head-on the hard topics of racism and other interracial relationships, but beyond that, it mostly favors the very popular and competitive science fiction genre.

More than fifty years ago, Butler walked into the already saturated genre knowing fully well the legacy and reputation previously set by great writers like H. G. Wells and Jonathan Swift and that leaving any meaningful mark meant she would have to put up her A game. And she did that precisely and is today acclaimed as one of the pioneering writers in the genre.

There are a good number of books that are similar to ‘ Kindred ’, and one of such books is H. G. Wells’ ‘ The Time Machine ’ for it utilizes the idea of traveling back and forth through time. Still, there exists a vast pool of similar books, and the aforementioned is merely just one good related book amongst many of such kind.

The Lasting Impact of Kindred

‘ Kindred ’ is a brave book that describes the impact of racial discrimination in the southern part of the United States many years ago, and it does so through the eyes of a 20th-century black woman who travels back in time to experience such impact. Her experience with the past in which she travels helps her understand her present reality and why things are the way they are.

Although the book is a science fiction built around the history and timelines of slavery in America, there are undoubtedly some vital messages beneath that the writer wanted to pass across to readers.

One of such messages is the fact that it reminds the readers that even though slavery has been stopped a long time ago, it’s still in some way managed to creep into today’s society and it’s now become more systemic rather than physical. Such a reminder then calls for a deliberate pooling of resources to ultimately unite all human races.

Kindred Review ⭐

‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler is, at its core, much more than just a work of historical science fiction but also harsh drilling against racial social injustice.

Kindred Themes and Analysis 📖

There are several important themes imbedded in ‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler, and these themes prove vital and are real life applicable for all readers as they cover aspects such as family and kinship, violent trauma, education and freedom.

Kindred Summary 📖

With a compelling narrative that is filled with suspense in nearly every line, Octavia E. Butlers’ ‘Kindred’ deploys the first-person perspective, selling a one-way ticket to readers as they time travel back and forth with the protagonist, Edana.

Kindred Character List 📖

In ‘Kindred’, Octavia E. Butler brings to life characters of the antebellum era – most of which are troubled by slavery and the quest to survive and be free.

Kindred Historical Context 📖

‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler has a historical context tied to the history of slavery and interracial relationships that existed between white and Black races.

Kindred Quotes 💬

The best quotes in ‘Kindred’ are as brave and courageous as the book itself which tackles – squarely – one of the most complicated human relationships, that being the relationship between white and Black races.

Join Our Free Community

Engage in Literary Forums

Create and Join Groups

Create your own profile

See fewer ads

Save and bookmark articles

Discover literature and connect with others just like yourself!

Start the Conversation. Join the Chat.

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

• See blocked member's posts
• Mention this member in posts
• Invite this member to groups

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Book Review: ‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler

Share this:

Everyone wonders what it would be like to meet their ancestors. But imagine if you suddenly were transported through time and space and came face to face with one of them. What if you found yourself in the position of saving their lives (and by extension yours)? Now imagine that ancestor is someone you never could have dreamed of having, nor wanted, for an ancestor. This is the whole premise of Kindred by   Octavia E. Butler .

Kindred has now been adapted for the small screen by FX and Hulu and all episodes will be available for streaming on December 13th. Before that, let’s look at the source material and see what exactly it’s all about.

[ Warning: Spoilers from Octavia Butler’s Kindred  are below!]

Confusion reigns in Kindred

Dana Franklin is a black woman living in 1976 California. On June 9th, 1976 she’s unpacking and moving into her new house with her husband, Kevin. Suddenly she is inexplicably transported to 1800s Maryland. Of course, she doesn’t know where and when she is. Still disorientated from the sudden change, all she knows is that she’s in the woods by a river.

Then she sees the child in the river, drowning. Without another thought, she dives in to save him. As she pulls him out and revives him, his parents are scared and confused and his father draws a gun on her. Dana is sure this is the end for her, then just as suddenly she’s back in her own home. While close to ten minutes passed for Dana, her husband insists she was gone for a matter of seconds.

Neither of them really understands what could possibly be happening, then suddenly, it’s happening again. Once again Dana mysteriously disappears from her own time and is sent to save the same boy’s life. This time she doesn’t disappear as soon as he’s safe. They have time to talk and Dana learns a few things about who he is and where she’s at.

When she realizes that she’s in slave territory and, obviously, doesn’t have papers to prove her freedom, Dana becomes very scared. She doesn’t know why she didn’t go back after saving the boy, Rufus, and she doesn’t know what to do next. Rufus doesn’t understand what’s happening either but he suggests that she heads to the cabin of a local free woman and her daughter, Alice before anyone finds her.

With more information comes some clarity

Dana ends up spending several hours in the past this time. She doesn’t return home until a man attacks her and she is sure she’s going to die again. When she comes back she learns that once again the time missing didn’t match and she’s only been gone a couple of minutes instead of hours.

But this time she’s learned a few things. Rufus’s last name is Weylin, and Dana remembers an old family bible that contained a family tree. At the top of that tree were Rufus Weylin and Alice Greenwood. She’s always known the name but no one has ever mentioned that Rufus was white. Learning that she has a white, slave-owning ancestor causes Dana some distress. 

Before she can process this new information, she’s pulled back to Rufus. And this time Kevin hitches a ride with her. This leads to an interesting dynamic between the couple because Kevin is white. They’re forced to assume the master/slave disguise in order to be accepted.

As the weeks of this stay drag on the strain starts to show. When Dana finally does go back home Kevin is accidentally left behind and Dana can find no way to return to him on her own. Will Dana be called back to Rufus’ time again? Will she be able to find Kevin when she does? Is her entire life going to be spent keeping Rufus alive? And should she even bother? Dana struggles with all these questions and more over the span of a few weeks in the summer of 1976. 

The mechanisms of Dana’s time travel in Kindred

By her third trip, Dana finally thinks she’s figured out at least some of the why of her situation. She is called to Rufus when he’s in danger of dying. She returns home when her own life is threatened. For some reason, she’s become the protector of her bloodline. The bigger why eludes her but she decides to stop worrying about that and just do her best to keep him alive.

Of course, this opens up all kinds of interesting questions about the nature of time. After all, how did Rufus survive before Dana was born over 150 years later? Perhaps time isn’t as linear as we perceive it. Maybe everything on the timeline is happening at the same time but linear time is all we can comprehend. What if Dana chooses not to save Rufus? Will she cease to exist? The ideas are interesting and will give your mind a real workout if you take the time to ponder them.

Unfortunately, Butler chooses not to really delve into any of these questions. She poses the question early on about how someone must have saved Rufus before Dana was born, but never really provides an answer.

She also sidesteps the problem of what happens if Dana doesn’t save him by having Dana always choose to save him. Her early rationalization for saving him even though he’s a pretty awful person is that she can maybe change him. As it becomes more obvious that he’s not redeemable, she uses her own survival as a reason to protect him. While her decision does make sense, it also neatly avoids the paradox of what happens if he dies before the next generation is born.

Kindred is an interesting tale that raises difficult questions

Kindred raises some interesting and difficult questions but doesn’t really answer any in my opinion. All kinds of emotional and thorny questions about race, identity, and human nature are posed by Dana’s story. But she ultimately chooses to take the easiest route of self-preservation every time.

About the only truth that Dana seems to arrive at is “how easily people could be trained to accept slavery”. I would have liked it if Butler had tried to answer some of the questions her story gives rise to. But I suppose each reader will just have to try and find the answers on their own.

The story itself was interesting enough, although the time-travel paradox isn’t really resolved so that left more loose ends for me. Overall, the story was better at raising questions than answering them and is probably best read as a book group book so that the difficult concepts it contains can receive the consideration they deserve.

My Rating: 7/10

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler  is available now and the FX series arrives on Hulu on December 13th. Do you plan on reading it? Let us know over on Twitter or The Cosmic Circus Discord. And if you haven’t already, check out our review of the second novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy of novels by Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife !

Book Review: The Subtle Knife: A His Dark Materials Novel

Luna Gauthier

I've always been a bookworm and fantasy is my favortie genre. I never imagined (okay, I imagined but I didn't think) that I could get those books sent to me for just my opinion. Now I am a very happy bookworm! @Lunagauthier19 on Twitter

Luna Gauthier has 213 posts and counting. See all posts by Luna Gauthier

• Literature & Fiction
• United States

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: $11.98 $11.98 FREE delivery: Tuesday, April 30 on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon. Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Buy used: $10.16

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Kindred Paperback – January 1, 2003

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 288 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Beacon Press
• Publication date January 1, 2003
• Grade level 9 - 12
• Reading age 14 - 18 years
• Dimensions 5.36 x 0.78 x 7.91 inches
• ISBN-10 0807083690
• ISBN-13 978-0807083697
• Lexile measure 580L
• See all details

Frequently bought together

Similar items that may ship from close to you

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Beacon Press; 25th edition (January 1, 2003)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0807083690
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0807083697
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14 - 18 years
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 580L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 9 - 12
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.36 x 0.78 x 7.91 inches
• #1 in Black & African American Science Fiction (Books)
• #15 in Time Travel Fiction
• #140 in Black & African American Women's Fiction (Books)

Videos for this product

Click to play video

Review of Kindred by Octavia E. Butler | Worth a read?

🌟Turner Family Reviews🌟

Discovered my gateway into the exceptional storytelling

Kyle ☘️ Lucy Bamboo

Customer Review: Item not as described

Great Afro futuristic book for teen reader & aspiring writer

The Bellyitch by Jay Jay Ghatt Shop

An intriguing story of time travel to slave times.

Book Chat Live

Amazon Videos

About the author

Octavia e. butler.

OCTAVIA E. BUTLER (1947–2006) was the renowned author of numerous ground-breaking novels, including Kindred, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. Recipient of the Locus, Hugo and Nebula awards, and a PEN Lifetime Achievement Award for her body of work, in 1995 she became the first science- fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship ‘Genius Grant’. A pioneer of her genre, Octavia’s dystopian novels explore myriad themes of Black injustice, women’s rights, global warming and political disparity, and her work is taught in over two hundred colleges and universities nationwide.

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Kindred: a graphic novel adaptation, common sense media reviewers.

Intense, stellar adaptation of classic sci-fi/fantasy novel.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Explores science-fiction theories of time travel,

Strong messages about endurance, empathy, courage,

There are positive role models including the main

There is significant violence throughout the book,

Rape is discussed, and the children produced are s

Racial epithets, the "N" word, "bitch," "damn."

Some drinking with dinner and during a party by ad

Parents need to know that New York Times best-selling Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation is based on Octavia E. Butler's classic 1979 novel. It's an intense, emotional, visceral sci-fi story that sends a modern black woman to pre-Civil War Maryland to a plantation that relies on the labor…

Educational Value

Explores science-fiction theories of time travel, time paradox, and historical and sociological studies into American colonial and 19th-century slavery and the human condition under extreme circumstances with equally extreme consequences.

Positive Messages

Strong messages about endurance, empathy, courage, and the need to understand the full reality of slavery.

Positive Role Models

There are positive role models including the main character who constantly balances who she is and how she perceives she should act when she is thrown into pre-Civil War Maryland on a slave plantation. She displays empathy and courage while trying to maintain her humanity. Many of the enslaved people she encounters have a positive influence, and her husband offers a significant level of support and courage once tested when he's trapped in pre-Civil War Maryland as well.

Violence & Scariness

There is significant violence throughout the book, including beatings of enslaved people; a man beats a woman severely, a woman kills herself, and a woman stabs a man with a knife. Blood is shown; one beating scene is witnessed by a child. The violence is not gratuitous, but it is graphic.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Rape is discussed, and the children produced are shown; a woman and man are shown naked, but no genitals are shown. Another scene shows a man and woman in bed and implies they had sex after going on a date. Several attempted rapes are shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Some drinking with dinner and during a party by adults shown. An adult male is shown smoking a pipe.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that New York Times best-selling Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation is based on Octavia E. Butler's classic 1979 novel. It's an intense, emotional, visceral sci-fi story that sends a modern black woman to pre-Civil War Maryland to a plantation that relies on the labor of enslaved people, where she's confronted with the realities of slavery as both an observer and a subjugated participant. There are intense scenes of violence with blood, body blows, and the results shown. There are intense scenes of attempted rape and discussion of rapes, both single-incident and habitual, and the results and injuries are shown. The violence is not gratuitous; instead it is an unvarnished look at the reality of life for both people who are enslaved and their enslavers in America. Parents should be prepared for emotional reactions to intense scenes in the book as well as discussions surrounding the issues of feminism, science-fiction and fantasy, race, history, the treatment of women, and Afrofuturism.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (3)

Based on 3 parent reviews

A difficult thought-experiment, but necessary

Excellent book that explores the harsh realities of slavery, what's the story.

KINDRED: GRAPHIC NOVEL ADAPTATION tells the story of Dana, an African-American writer in the 1970s married to a white man who finds herself dragged through time to repeatedly save her White enslaver ancestor's life to preserve her own down the line. She is confronted with the very real dangers of being an educated Black woman who dresses "like a man" in a time when women were killed for less. She watches and then is subjugated to the horrors of slavery and begins to understand the "history of slavery" is nothing but words on a page compared with reality. Will Dana continue to time-travel and save her ancestor, or will it all be too much for her to bear?

Is It Any Good?

In this dead-on retelling of Octavia E. Butler's 1979 sci-fi novel, which is intense, heart-stopping, thought-provoking, and powerful, Damian Duffy boils Butler's work down to 240 pages while not losing any of the strife, terror, ambiguity, and movement of the original. It's tough to take on a widely acclaimed and deeply loved work, and Duffy has done it splendidly, making the story come alive in a different art form.

Illustrator John Jennings brings intricate, layered, and at times deliberately heavy, dazed, and frazzled-feeling illustrations to Butler's work, allowing readers another deeply emotional connection to the story and Dana's experiences. Jennings' art increases the intensity for readers. Some passages feel like a gut punch to the soul. There's much to unpack in the story: Duffy's adaptation, Jennings' use of color, and the science-fiction, Afrofuturistic, feminist, and racial aspects of the book. Duffy and Jennings have opened a new generation's eyes to Butler's work while encouraging Butler's fans to experience the story in a whole new way. The strong themes make this a book geared toward high school teens, and its stunning graphic novel presentation makes it perfect to tempt reluctant readers as well.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how the enslaved people are portrayed in Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. How does that compare with other media portrayals you've seen and with the historical documentation from slaves narratives? Does the media sometimes present a romanticized view of the time?

Dana had an idea of how she would be if she were enslaved and an idea of what it was like back then, but nothing prepared her for it. Based on the text, imagine what you would be like in those circumstances in that era.

How does the art in the intense scenes make you feel? How does the art change when Dana travels back to the plantation vs. when she's at home in her present time?

Book Details

• Authors : Damian Duffy , Octavia E. Butler
• Illustrator : John Jennings
• Genre : Science Fiction
• Topics : Magic and Fantasy , History , Science and Nature
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date : January 10, 2017
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 14 - 18
• Number of pages : 240
• Available on : Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
• Last updated : June 2, 2022

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Pemba's Song: A Ghost Story

The Door of No Return

Historical Fiction

Books about racism and social justice, related topics.

• Magic and Fantasy
• Science and Nature

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

How our treatment of animals has changed — and hasn’t — in 150 years

‘our kindred creatures’ takes readers through the history of the animal rights movement.

It was a “revolution in kindness,” we read in “ Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals .” That’s how Bill Wasik, the editorial director of the New York Times Magazine, and his wife, the veterinarian Monica Murphy, describe the animal welfare movement, launched in 1866 after the Civil War when Henry Bergh, an American diplomat, founded the ASPCA, the first animal protection organization in the United States.

This well-researched book is an enlightening if somewhat rambling survey of how our treatment of animals has changed over the past century and a half. It is also, frustratingly, a testament to how much has stayed the same.

The story Wasik and Murphy tell begins on the streets of New York, where workhorses forced to haul overloaded carts were routinely whipped by their owners, and dog and cock fights were staged for gambling and entertainment. Such public displays of cruelty offended the new urban elite, who were increasingly taking dogs and cats into their homes as pets. Those who had fought slavery now found other objects for their liberating zeal. The crusade for animal welfare, the authors tell us, was a small part of a larger ethical awakening that swept the nation after its fratricidal bloodbath. Within a year of the founding of the ASPCA, New York state had enacted an anti-cruelty law, and the organization was given the jurisdiction to enforce it. By 1871, Wasik and Murphy write, eight of the nation’s 10 largest cities had their own SPCAs, all of them granted legal powers by their respective states.

No one surpassed Bergh in sheer zeal and theatricality. Daily, the rail-thin son of a German shipping magnate took to the streets of Manhattan to command coach drivers to stop beating their horses, and to haul abusive butchers off to court. The Daily Herald compared Bergh to the inquisitor Torquemada, and cartoonists lampooned the sallow-faced activist with a drooping mustache as a sanctimonious sniveler. By contrast, the New-York Tribune (owned by the vegetarian and reformer Horace Greeley) editorialized that Bergh’s crusade deserved “the approval of all right thinking people.”

The authors dedicate an entertaining chapter to Bergh’s clash with circus magnate P.T. Barnum, who displayed a menagerie of exotic creatures in his American Museum, a five-story emporium in downtown Manhattan, which included hippos and electric eels, assorted snakes, and “the Learned Seals, ‘Ned’ and ‘Fanny.’”

While “Bergh had not ranked animal exhibitions highly, if at all, in his tallies of the worst offenders,” we read, he did draw a line at Barnum’s feeding boa constrictors live rabbits, a display of nature’s innate cruelty that he feared would erode the moral character of the young people who witnessed it. When Barnum went into the circus business after his museum burned down in 1865, Bergh focused on circuses’ mistreatment of animals, objecting to the use of sharpened bullhooks to train elephants. The Barnum and Bailey Circus, he declared, “should not be patronized by respectable and humane citizens.”

Instead of resisting Bergh and his irksome crusade, Barnum shrewdly forged an unlikely friendship with his nemesis and eventually joined the board of his local SPCA chapter in Bridgeport, Conn. Whether this marked a sincere late-life conversion or a publicity stunt is hard to say. But Barnum’s public embrace of Bergh and animal rights helped to sway opinion at a critical moment.

Meanwhile, bison were being slaughtered to the edge of extinction on the Great Plains; passenger pigeons, whose massive flocks once darkened American skies, were wiped out in a matter of decades by hunters, as were Carolina parakeets and other birds decimated for feathers to adorn women’s hats. The Audubon Society was established in 1886 to help safeguard imperiled species.

Fashion could be cruel to animals, but so too could science. The authors introduce Caroline Earle White, a Philadelphia Quaker converted to Catholicism. White channeled her religious belief in the sanctity of life to the founding of the American Anti-Vivisection Society, an organization that opposed the testing of animals in laboratories.

The medical establishment of the day fought back. Animal experimentation had produced remarkable benefits, including several lifesaving vaccines developed by the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur in the 1870s and ’80s. However, in less-able hands, the authors point out, millions of animal lives had been needlessly wasted — and continue to be wasted — “to no good end.”

Like so many of the debates initiated by animal activists in the late 19th century, this controversy continues today. Medical experiments, now regulated, are still performed on countless creatures. But a still greater source of mass suffering is the treatment of livestock. Rudyard Kipling, who visited Chicago in 1889, described scenes in the packinghouses where pigs, “still kicking,” were dropped into boiling vats and cattle “were slain at the rate of five a minute.”

The Illinois Humane Society, we read, was co-opted by the burgeoning meat industry. (Beef baron Philip D. Armour was a major contributor and a member of the society’s board of directors.) And while Upton Sinclair’s muckraking novel “The Jungle” brought public attention to the abuses of the meatpacking industry, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, passed soon after it was published, would regulate sanitary conditions in plants but not animal suffering.

Serious efforts to improve the treatment of livestock would have to wait for the animal rights movement spurred by the writings of the Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer during the 1970s and beyond. But the authors remind us that progress has been slow. Sows are still imprisoned in metal gestation crates; chickens are raised so tightly packed together that they can barely turn around. America has more cows and pigs than cats and dogs, we read, but their welfare garners far less attention. And, while we remain focused on charismatic species like polar bears and whales, thousands of others teeter on the edge of extinction.

Yet Wasik and Murphy are finally optimistic that the “circle of our care” is slowly expanding. The question is whether this gradual blossoming of compassion will come fast enough in an era of climate change to save our kindred creatures — and ourselves.

Richard Schiffman is an environmental journalist.

Our Kindred Creatures

How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do About Animals

By Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy

Knopf. 450 pp. $35

More from Book World

Love everything about books? Make sure to subscribe to our Book Club newsletter , where Ron Charles guides you through the literary news of the week.

Best books of 2023: See our picks for the 10 best books of 2023 or dive into the staff picks that Book World writers and editors treasured in 2023. Check out the complete lists of 50 notable works for fiction and the top 50 nonfiction books of last year.

Find your favorite genre: Three new memoirs tell stories of struggle and resilience, while five recent historical novels offer a window into other times. Audiobooks more your thing? We’ve got you covered there, too . If you’re looking for what’s new, we have a list of our most anticipated books of 2024 . And here are 10 noteworthy new titles that you might want to consider picking up this April.

Still need more reading inspiration? Super readers share their tips on how to finish more books . Or let poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib explain why he stays in Ohio . You can also check out reviews of the latest in fiction and nonfiction .

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

At Home With Our Ancient Cousins, the Neanderthals

By Yuval Noah Harari

• Published Nov. 7, 2020 Updated Nov. 9, 2020

KINDRED Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art By Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Ever since we discovered their existence in 1856, Neanderthals have captured our imagination. While we find it easy to accept that the world is home to different kinds of bears, foxes and dolphins, we are startled by the idea of other species of humans. Just by being, Neanderthals challenge some of our most cherished ideals and delusions. Neanderthals force us to question the belief that Homo sapiens is the apex of creation and, more generally, what it means to be human.

These questions are now more urgent than ever. In 1856, it seemed that Neanderthals belonged safely to the past, and that Homo sapiens would forever dominate the great chain of being. In 2020, we are far less certain. New technologies might soon make it possible to resurrect the Neanderthals. Even more important, new technologies might make it possible to re-engineer Homo sapiens, or to create completely new kinds of humans.

New technologies have also revolutionized the study of Neanderthals and other ancient humans. Over the past few decades novel techniques to analyze stone, bone and DNA have made it possible to reconstruct what occurred around a Neanderthal campfire 100,000 years ago. A handful of tiny fragments are sometimes enough to determine what some Neanderthal ate for breakfast, what ailments afflicted her, what was the color of her skin and whether her parents were first cousins.

Every year, enormous amounts of new data about Neanderthals gush forth in scientific journals. The media has picked up the most sensational scoops, most notably that Neanderthals interbred with Sapiens, and that about 2 percent to 3 percent of our genes today come from Neanderthal ancestors. Yet for most people Neanderthals remain the brutish cave people familiar from countless cartoons. We think in stories rather than in data-bits, and the only thing that can replace an old story is a new one.

In her book “Kindred,” Rebecca Wragg Sykes aims to tell a complete new story about Neanderthals. She has done a remarkable job synthesizing thousands of academic studies into a single accessible narrative. From her pages emerge new Neanderthals that are very different from the cartoon figures of old. “Kindred” is important reading not just for anyone interested in these ancient cousins of ours, but also for anyone interested in humanity.

Sykes’s most important contribution is to understand Neanderthals on their own terms. We tend to discuss all other human species in relation to our own. We see them as steppingstones on the path to Sapiens, and we want to know in which ways we were superior to them, whether we had sex with them and whether we killed them off. But in Sykes’s story, Sapiens appear only as minor characters at the end. “Kindred” is about Neanderthals.

Sykes explains that Neanderthals were sophisticated and competent human beings who adapted to diverse habitats and climates. They ranged from the shores of the Atlantic to the steppes of Central Asia. They thrived in hot climates as well as in ice age tundra. In addition to iconic large game hunts, Neanderthals also fished in rivers, gathered a multitude of plant species and sometimes stole honey from beehives. They manufactured complex tools, made clothing from animal hides, constructed cozy shelters, occasionally buried their dead and maybe, just maybe, even created art.

Sykes’s book is as much a paean to the wonders of modern technology as it is to the skills of ancient Neanderthals. She describes, for example, how scientists unearthed tiny stone flakes in an Italian cave with some minute smudges on them. Careful analysis revealed that one 50,000-year-old smudge contained a mixture of tree resin and beeswax. Apparently, some innovative Neanderthals discovered that by mixing the two they could produce an adhesive to haft stone with wooden handles and create composite tools. The ability of modern scientists to determine such things is perhaps as startling as the ability of ancient Neanderthals to master such expertise.

Yet Sykes’s convincing arguments about the competence and diversity of ancient Neanderthals lead us back to the inevitable Sapiens question. Scholars always noted the suspicious coincidence that Neanderthals made their exit exactly when Sapiens appeared on the scene. But as long as scholars viewed Neanderthals as simple brutes barely scraping by in ice age Europe, it was easy to give Sapiens the benefit of the doubt. Some scholars said that climate change made conditions more suitable for Sapiens while Neanderthals couldn’t cope with it. Other scholars argued that Neanderthals were already on the brink of extinction even before Sapiens left Africa. Another option was that Neanderthals didn’t go extinct at all — they were assimilated into the expanding Sapiens population.

But Sykes’s new synthesis seems to rule out all these options. For over 300,000 years Neanderthals successfully weathered many climatic cycles and adjusted to numerous habitats. They were capable of innovation and adaptation. They disappeared quite abruptly about 40,000 years ago as a result of what looks more like a sudden shock than a protracted process of decline. And while we now have conclusive evidence that some Neanderthals interbred with Sapiens, the evidence indicates that these were isolated incidents, and that the two populations did not merge.

So what happened? If Neanderthals were so good, why did they disappear? Sykes does not provide a definitive answer, but her findings strengthen the suspicion that Sapiens had a hand in it. Apparently, Neanderthals were sophisticated and innovative enough to deal with diverse climates and habitats, but not with their African cousins.

Sykes provides convincing evidence that on the individual level, Neanderthals were in no way inferior to Sapiens. Neanderthal bodies were as fit, their hands were as dexterous and their brains were as big — if not bigger — than those of Sapiens. The Sapiens advantage probably lay in large-scale cooperation.

Sykes explains that Neanderthals lived in small bands that rarely if ever cooperated with one another. The only tantalizing clue that Neanderthal bands perhaps traded goods comes from a few stone tools. By analyzing different mineral signatures, scholars can identify the exact source of each stone. In a few remarkable cases, stones were sourced from more than 100 kilometers away. It is unclear, however, whether this indicates that Neanderthal bands traded precious items or that Neanderthals traveled over very long distances.

At the time when they encountered the Neanderthals, Sapiens too lived in small bands, but different Sapiens bands probably cooperated on a regular basis. There is much more evidence for long-distance trade among Sapiens, and spectacular burials like the 32,000-year-old Sunghir graves clearly reflect the combined effort of more than one band.

Large-scale cooperation did not necessarily mean that a horde of 500 Sapiens united to wipe out a band of 20 Neanderthals. Cooperation isn’t just about violence. Sapiens could more easily benefit from the discoveries and inventions of other people. If somebody in a neighboring band discovered a new way to locate beehives, to make a tunic or to heal a wound, such knowledge could spread much more quickly among Sapiens than among Neanderthals. While individual Neanderthals were perhaps as inquisitive, imaginative and creative as individual Sapiens, superior networking enabled Sapiens to swiftly outcompete Neanderthals.

This, however, is largely speculation. We still don’t know enough about the psychology, society and politics of Neanderthals to be sure. Perhaps the most surprising fact in Sykes’s book is that even if we count every bone fragment and every isolated tooth, so far we have found the remains of fewer than 300 Neanderthals. We have managed to extract an immense amount of knowledge from these very few witnesses.

In coming years we are bound to find some more. Over a period of 350,000 years, millions upon millions of Neanderthals walked the earth. As you read these lines, perhaps an archaeologist is discovering another Neanderthal bone in a cave in Germany, or Russian construction workers are amazed to find a frozen Neanderthal body inside the melting Siberian permafrost. As the evidence accumulates and our technology improves, the Neanderthals will keep surprising us. We are only beginning to understand their true story.

Yuval Noah Harari is the author, most recently, of “Sapiens: A Graphic History.”

KINDRED Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art By Rebecca Wragg Sykes 400 pp. Bloomsbury Sigma. $28.

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram , s ign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar . And listen to us on the Book Review podcast .