Customer Reviews

The Colored Garden

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4 star:		(1)
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After living in Germany as the son of a military officer, Sarge watches the break-up of the marriage between his parents. His father remains overseas while his mother returns to Kentucky where Sarge's maternal grandmother, Ruth still owns a farm.

On the former tobacco plantation lays an old slave cemetery that Ruth tenderly cares for as if it is her own special garden. For several generations, slaves were buried in the cemetery. Ruth begins to tell Sarge the stories behind each graveside. However, Ruth is either unable to or refuses to tell Sarge the story behind one particular stone that marks the birth and death of baby Kate. Sarge who has handled his parents' separation rather poorly turns to the deceased slaves for solace. He needs to know the story of Kate if he is to get past the pending divorce. As Sarge seeks the truth, he concludes that some secrets are better off buried.

THE COLORED GARDEN is a tremendous but different type of coming of age tale that will thrill readers who relish their fiction to contain something entertaining yet different. The story line centers on the stunned Sarge as he listens with earnest to the tales about the dead slaves while seeking something new to believe in. Oscar H. Bennett has written a winner that digs deep into the essence of human nature in an articulate and intelligent novel that is worth reading.

Harriet Klausner

In the Colored Garden we are led through a bit of history in the stories Grandma Ruth relates to her Grandson Kenneth or Sarge as he is known. The tales of the slaves and family members lain to rest in a small plot, maintained as a garden, tell us a lot about our collective past, and where we need to be going in our future. I laughed and I cried at these telling stories, more way they were told, and why, than the historical truths they relay. This is a wonderfull book for all generations, colors and creeds. We all have heros like Cakes, Bobbycat, and the Major. We have known the fears life brings us. The author, Oscar Bennett, takes us through the steps of life in one memorable summer. You must read this book, it is a blessing.

This excellent work met all of my expectations. The stories were so vivid that I could see every detail in my imagination. Grandma Ruth was the character who touched me most with her great gift creating beauty in her garden as well as in her storytelling. The author also captured the essence of childhood in the evolution of Sarge. If we all think hard enough, we've all known at least one Sarge in our lives. O.H. Bennett is an author to watch in the future and I look forward to his next publication as well as passing this one along for others to enjoy.

I really enjoyed this book. Parts of it were painful because I related them to my own growing up in the South during the same time period. The main character, Sarge, is a melding of my brother and a couple of his friends and the grandparents in the story evoked memories of my long-dead uncles and aunts. This is a touching story that emphasizes how important it is for families to cherish each other.

This book touched my heart in a way that no book has for many years! I have read it three times and each time, it moved me to tears in the very same places. Not just a story for the descendants of slaves in the US, this is a story for all of us, reminding us that there is much to learn and build on from the lives of our ancestors and the way they learned to overcome hardship.

The Colored Garden is a fascinating novel about storytellers: a boy called Sarge and his grandmother Ruth, whose farm Sarge visits in the wake of his parents' separation. On the farm is an old slave cemetery that Ruth tends as a beautiful flower garden. As Sarge struggles to understand his parents' impending divorce, Grandmother Ruth begins to tell him adventures of the dead slaves. These spirits become heroes to the boy during this pivotal summer in his life, and the faith he once had in his parents is transferred to them. Listening to Ruth and observing the behavior of the adults around him, Sarge learns that some secrets we keep, while others keep us. The Colored Garden is a highly recommended, original story, in which the author compelling explores the human condition, past and present in a lyrical, engaging narrative.

The colored Garden was indeed a great story, you could pretty much picture yourself there..great read very well written

I finished this novel reawakened to the power of the past to shape our present. The novel focuses on the experience of a black boy who lives with his mother, sister and grandparents for a summer in Kentucky. Slavery, his grandparents' secret and his parents' dissolving marriage propel him to experience the world in a unique way. I liked traveling along with this boy on his summer journey. His pereceptions were amusing and his honesty compelling.

Simply one of the best novels I've ever read. More than young adult fiction, The Colored Garden is a timeless fictional look at American history and American mores.

Sarge learns powerful lessons (reality of life, racial interaction, family secrets) during a "visit" to the grandparents'.