The marriage of Celestial and Roy is mediated by bars: prison bars. They are a young black couple who is torn apart when Roy is falsely accused of rape (Celestial was with him when it was supposed to have happened) and he is sentenced to 12 years in prison. After he is incarcerated (a very... Continue Reading →
Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016) tricked me for a moment. It portrays the famous underground railroad, a network of abolitionists and volunteers who helped slaves escape the south and head north in nineteenth century America, as an actual railroad with trains and tunnels. I thought that I had somehow missed something in history classes,... Continue Reading →
My kids and I are ready for summer. Perhaps even a “crazy summer.” But I suspect that any summer plans we make or carry out will not be as crazy as the summer the Gaither sisters have in Oakland, California, in Rita Williams-Garcia’s book One Crazy Summer (2010). Delphine, age ten, and her younger sisters... Continue Reading →
I've been hearing buzz about Ta-Nehisi (pronounced Tah Neh-hah-see) Coates's work for a few months now, so I decided to "read" his book Between the World and Me (2015) by listening to it while driving to and from school. It is a heavy book, one that I wish I had been able to take notes... Continue Reading →
I had been eyeing James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird (2013), winner of the National Book Award, for several weeks at my library. I heard about it when it came out, and I considered putting it on hold, but I knew I didn’t have time for pleasure reading until after my semester was over. So... Continue Reading →
We live in a mostly white, suburban neighborhood. Most everybody is Christian. There isn’t a lot of diversity or chances to teach my daughter from experience about other cultures and religions. So, when I can do so through books, I always jump on that chance. I want her to read as widely and broadly as... Continue Reading →
I recently read Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). It is the second time I have picked up this book. The first time occurred about a decade ago, and I got intimidated and stopped reading. Sometimes I do that. I let the first few pages of a book slide through my... Continue Reading →
I picked up The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks expecting a charming bildungsroman of a young girl in the south who worms her way into the hearts of a family. Don’t ask me why. The title somehow brought to my mind the heartwarming novel Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. Boy, I was wrong, and pleasantly so. The... Continue Reading →
Alex Haley, famous for writing Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976), searched for identity by tracing his family history. He spent many years inquiring of every African he met the meaning of a few African words passed down from his ancestor Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped in Africa and sold into slavery in... Continue Reading →
The Bookshelf of Emily J. 