Rating: 
Summary: The Black Rose
Review: Prior to reading this book,I knew very little about Madame C.J. Walker. I knew she became wealthy after starting a hair product company, but after that often told fact,I didn't know very much else. This book not only enlighted me to the facts surrounding her early beginnings to her rise to fame and fortune, it also served to be a very great story. It was very well written, and an instant page turner from start to finish. The Black Rose took the reader through a journey through history and left you thinking of the characters long after the book was finished. If this had been a very strict historical fact based book, I honestly don't think that I would have enjoyed it nearly as much. The fact that the book was a very rare combination of fiction and fact made for an extremely interesting book. A must read for any serious book lover.
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Black Rose
Review: The Black Rose is the perfect title for this beautiful novel by one of America's finest writers. Tananarive Due is awesome! This read is written with so much creative style, the words, sentences and scenes make you feel as if you are right in the middle of the cotton field with the main character. You will not be able to put this read down. This read is like a love story; Madam Walker's love affair with everyone who passes through her life, every dream and positive or negative encounter, its about love. Ms. Due captures the story of an American Historian, Madam CJ Walker, and she guides her readers through the plight of the Madam's destiny. Its a beautiful affair.
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Summary: WONDERFUL HISTORICAL FICTION!
Review: This is an excellent, fictionalized novel about Sarah Breedlove, later famously known as Madame C.J. Walker; first female millionaire and creator of hair care products for black women. The author makes good use of research started by the late, great, Alex Haley. Sarah's encounters with famous African-American "movers and shakers" of the period are believable as is the account of her stark, challenging, but rewarding life. Born two years after the Civil War, the book chronicles Sarah's harsh childhood; her marriage at the tender age of 14, her hard life as a washerwoman and her experiments with various hair-growing formulas until she hits "the jackpot". The book is very well written, however, because I'm not a Walker expert, I couldn't discern fact from fiction. Because the book's writing style is outstanding, I await anxiously for the true account of Madam Walker's life written by Walker's great-great granddaughter: A'Lelia Perry Bundles. Her biography will be available February 2001 titled: "On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker". What a wonderful story of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. Ms. Walker became a philanthropist, and a champion for the cause of her people. She is definitely an inspiration to anyone, but females in particular. I applaud Ms. Due for a job well done.
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Summary: "Black Rose" - An Inspirational Story
Review: [Note: This review originally appeared August 14, 2000, in the Seattle Times and is available online at ...P>This skillful biographical novel is about a woman who could have shown Horatio Alger what it really means to start with less than nothing and succeed against all odds by means of perseverance, imagination, talent, and generosity. In "The Black Rose," Longview author Tananarive Due ("My Soul to Keep") has traced the career of Madame C. J. Walker, America's first black millionaire. Due based her narrative on research that Alex Haley had gathered for a book on Walker, which he planned to write in the style of "Roots" but failed to finish before his death. Madame Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in 1867 in Delta, Louisiana, to former slaves. When her parents died of yellow fever (she was only seven), she and her sister moved to Mississippi and found work doing laundry for white people. Later Sarah married and gave birth to a daughter, Lelia, then was widowed when her beloved husband was killed for protesting against injustices at work. For fourteen years, during an era of violent prejudice against black people, Sarah worked as a washerwoman, eventually moving to St. Louis in search of a better life for Lelia. Sarah had always been intrigued by small businesses, from one-man fish stands to laundries that jobbed out their services. And she was a problem-solver. One day she bought an ointment that failed to ease a painful scalp condition, and it happened just when she'd begun worrying about teenaged Lelia's poor self-image in a world of white beauty standards. Sarah used healthier ingredients to develop a skin and hair treatment for black women, and a successful cosmetics business was born that would soon be worth over a million dollars, with offices in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Manhattan. Due makes an interesting, absorbing narrative of Madame Walker's philanthropy toward black causes, her work with leaders such as W. E. B. DuBois, and her complicated emotional struggles with Lelia and second husband C. J. Walker. Most moving of all is how Walker's life story and the independent, dignified work she gave to women across the nation inspired thousands of her sisters to believe in themselves.
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