Nonfiction Mini Book Reviews: Stamped from the Beginning...

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

Published: March 8th, 2016 by Bold Type Books

Genre: Nonfiction, Antiracism, History

Format: Paperback, 592 Pages, Own

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

Ibram X. Kendi really lays out the evolution of racist ideas in the United States. He divides the book into five parts and focuses each part on five individuals who were alive during that time, or still alive as in the case of Angela Davis. And his main thesis rests on three categories of ideas and thus those that hold them: segregationists, assimilationists, and antiracists. His other thesis rests on the idea that policies were made such as slavery in order to make money and to hold power and in order to justify these policies racist ideas were sought out and incorporated into the U.S. narrative.

It's a bold book with bold ideas and leaves much to chew on and think over. Sometimes I found the sarcasm and eye-rolling mood of his book a bit off-putting but overall I enjoyed discussing and stewing over it all with my book club. It's a must-read book to gain an understanding of where racist ideas have come from and why America continues to hold them today.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Published: August 13th, 2019 by One World

Genre: Nonfiction, Antiracism, Memoir

Format: Hardcover, 305 Pages, Own

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed Kendi's blend of his journey into his ideas of what it means to hold antiracist ideas and how that also crosses into all other aspects of social justice and intersectionality. Each chapter focuses on these ideas and how he learned about each and those that helped him along the way. He includes his own racist ideas that he grew up with and how he unlearned these ideas and how we can too.

A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader edited by Maria Popova

Published: December 14th, 2018 by Enchanted Lion Books

Genre: Nonfiction, Essays, Young Adult

Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages, Own

Rating: 5 stars

My Thoughts:

An excellent collection of letters to young readers from writers around the world. I enjoyed reading these aloud to G and giving him a bit of fire under the belly to read and write more! Also the illustrations that go with each letter are fun and whimsical. A beautiful collection and one I'll turn back to over the coming years.

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving by Catherine O'Neill Grace and Margaret M. Bruchac 

Published: October 1st, 2004 by National Geographic Kids

Genre: Nonfiction, History, Juvenile

Format: Paperback, 48 Pages, Own

Rating: 5 stars

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed reading this with G over the Thanksgiving break. We learned a lot about what really happened and the myths that still persist in the American psyche. We'd love to visit the live museum. So much to learn.

Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells by Pico Iyer

Published: April 16th, 2019 by Knopf Publishing Group

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Nature

Format: Kindle, 256 Pages, Own

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

I loved reading through Iyer's ruminations on living in Japan and his favorite season in Japan, Autumn. Fall is also my favorite time of the year and it was especially beautiful and meaningful when I lived in Japan. While I don't live there like he does I could still feel his love and fascination with Japan. He has truly beautiful insights and way to see with his words. It's the next best thing to actually being there. This is probably one I will revisit every Autumn.

Almost American Girl: An Illustrated Memoir by Robin Ha

Published: January 28th, 2020 by Balzer + Bray

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Graphic Novel, Young Adult

Format: Paperback, 240 Pages, Library

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

Robin Ha's memoir of leaving Korea for America with her mother and without knowing she was permanently moving to America was heart-wrenching! She describes her childhood and how much she loved her neighborhood and her friends and to leave that all behind and not knowing when she would be able to go back was tragic. Her experience trying to fit in in Alabama and not knowing English and being bullied by students and even her own stepsister and stepcousins was also hard to read. But ultimately it's a story of finding your own and making the best of a bad situation. Highly recommended.

She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened After by Bridget Quinn

Published: August 11th, 2020 by Chronicle Books

Genre: Nonfiction, Feminism, History

Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages, Library

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed the short history chapters and mini bios of those pioneering women who helped fight for suffrage and those who continue to fight for social justice. Quinn does not paint all as saints. We hear about the racism from the frontrunner White women of the movements. I loved the chapter on Sojourner Truth. I learned that she didn't actually say "Ain't I a woman?" All the art in each chapter was beautiful and interesting. So many great tidbits in each chapter. It's a great starter on women's history in the U.S. with tons of sources to keep reading.

Mini Book Reviews: Riot Baby and Through the Woods

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Published: January 21st, 2020 by Tor

Genre: Sci-fi/fantasy

Format: Hardcover, 176 Pages, Library

Rating: 4.5 stars

My Thoughts:

This is a poignant look at what could happen if a power is born out of destruction and trauma. Specifically, Black Americans' trauma of police violence, school-to-prison-pipeline, etc. Ella has a power that begins to consume her. She can see people's futures; how they die and when. She soon begins to exhibit even more power. Can she save her brother Kev who's been sent to Riker's island awaiting trail for years with no conviction?

Onyebuchi has a way with words and imagery. Some of the transitional story elements were hard to follow but it's a powerful book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Published: July 15th, 2014 by Margaret K. McElderry Books

Genre: Horror, Graphic Novel, Young Adult, Short Stories

Format: Paperback, 208 Pages, Library

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

Ms. Carroll takes us through the woods via various stories. And they are horrific and creepy! Some were a little ambiguous so it was hard to know exactly what happened but I think that adds to the horror, honestly. G read it right before bet one night and had a hard time getting to sleep. I read it the next night and also found my thoughts a bit disturbed before bed.

The illustrations are also terrifying and gorgeous. 

I almost wanted more stories and more of the story, which is why it doesn't get a full five from me. But these are a great collection of terrifying stories. They almost remind me of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark."

*read this as part of the Frightfall Read-a-thon over at Seasons of Reading.

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Published: April 21st, 2020 by Crown Publishing Group (NY)

Genre: Nonfiction, History, Current Events

Format: Kindle, 272 Pages, Own

Rating: 5 stars

My Thoughts:

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. writes a much-needed book on how we can begin again and keeping moving forward despite all the steps back. And what better way to do this than with the words and life of James Baldwin.

James Baldwin "...saw, and felt deeply, the effects of America's betrayal of the black freedom struggle of the mid-twentieth century: The country had refused once again, to turn its back on racism and to reach for its better angels..." And here the country sits at the brink do we refuse once again to learn about the foundations of this country? Do we refuse to acknowledge and the cries of Black people and people of color, for their cries of acknowledgement and change? "A moral reckoning is upon us, and we have to decide, once and for all, whether or not we will truly be a multiracial democracy."

Glaude takes us on his journey as he thinks about Baldwin's life and works. It's a bit memoir, biography, and literary criticism and history all rolled into one. The pain is real as we see major steps forward and huge reckoning starting with the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century but how once again America turns its back on learning and growing and reconciliation. We end up getting Nixon and Reagan and major steps back with the war on drugs and mass incarceration, which has disproportionately affected Black Americans and people of color.

"Revealing the lie at the heart of the American idea, however, occasions an opportunity to tell a different and better story...Not everything his lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdications, one begins again."

And thus how Glaude takes us through Baldwin's America (which is our America) and his hopes, despair, and reconciliation with America then and how we can like Baldwin did begin again.

Through his book I've also discovered more insights into Baldwin than I ever thought I could know. More of his writings, interviews, documentaries about him, letters, and journals dedicated to analyzing everything he wrote was brought to my attention. Can't wait to dive in.

Mini Book Reviews: Stamped, Giovanni's Room...

Stamped: Racism, Anti-racism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

Published: March 10th, 2020 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Genre: Young Adult, History, Non-fiction

Format: Hardcover, 294 Pages, Own

Rating: 4.5 stars

My Thoughts:

Jason Reynolds adapted Ibram X. Kendi's award-winning history book Stamped from the Beginning into a book for young adults. That book is almost 600 pages! So that's quite the condensing. Reynolds turns it into more of a dialogue about history and race and how it's all connected. Black history is American history. My son was probably a little too young for some of it since he didn't quite get some of the references. And the book came off very sarcastic--which makes sense if you're talking to someone face to face. That style will work most of the time but sometimes it felt a bit off. But I think it's an excellent book to start to understand, especially for young people, America's true history. There are lots of references and other sites to check out in the back. I'm also still working through Kendi's history book. Gabe and me had some excellent discussions. America needs to change how it teaches and discusses and talks about our history. We can't know how we got here if we don't truly understand what has happened.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Published: 1956

Genre: Modern Classic

Format: Kindle, 178 Pages, Own

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

Baldwin writes a beautiful and thoughtful novel on what it means to be gay and black in a world that doesn't really accept either, and especially not together. Giovanni's room haunts him and as us. Paris has never felt more sad or closed and encroaching than in this story.

"And these nights were being acted out under a foreign sky, with on one to watch, no penalties attached--it was this last fact which was our undoing, for nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom."

"Their decisions are not really decisions at all--a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named--but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not."

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

Published: October 11th, 2016 by Riverhead Books

Genre: Literary Fiction

Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages, Library

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

We follow Nadia Turner from high school as she loses her mother to suicide and the consequences that follow. The themes throughout are about motherhood and what it means to choose or not choose to be a mother. We learn more about Nadia's mother and what made her tick. How her life changed when she became pregnant with Nadia. What if she hadn't kept her? Where would her mother be?

It's a short but powerful story. I look forward to her next one.

"...Upper Room had encircled the wailing mother and held her up, soundlessly, because hard deaths resist words. A soft death can be swallowed with Called home to be with the Lord or We'll see her again in glory, but hard deaths get caught in the teeth like gristle."

"We see the span of her life unspooling in colorful threads and we chase it, wrapping it around our hands as more tumbles out. She's her mother's age now. Double her age. Our age You're our mother. We're climbing inside of you."

A Kid's Guide to Native American History: More Than 50 Activities by Yvonne Wakim Dennis

Published: November 1st, 2009 by Chicago Review Press

Genre: Juvenile, Non-fiction, History

Format: Kindle, 256 Pages, Own

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

I read this out loud with Gabe. We've been diving into history together and this one talks about each Nation in the Americas. Culture, history, famous people. There are activities to do at the end of each chapter and lots of resources to learn more. I thought it was an excellent introduction to Native American history which is also American history.

Morning Girl by Michael Dorris

Published: 1990 

Genre: Juvenile, Historical Fiction

Format: Paperback, 80 Pages, Own

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

Dorris does a fantastic job of letting us experience Morning Girl, Star Boy, and their people on the Caribbean Islands before Columbus arrived and murdered them all. Gabe and I were both sad to learn about Michael Dorris' life. He died a few years after he wrote this book.

No Cats Allowed by Miranda James

Published: February 23rd, 2016 by Berkley

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Format: Paperback, 275 Pages, Own

Rating: 2 stars

My Thoughts:

I shouldn't be too hard on it but it was one of the more poorly written cozy mysteries I've read in awhile. This is number 7 in the series and I haven't read any others. But like a good cozy, you don't need to. The author catches us up on anything we need to know in various ways. The mystery is OK, nothing out of the ordinary. But I didn't like the protagonist. He's a do-gooder with no personality. His kids have no personalities. And it takes place in the south with some benevolent racism thrown in. Meh. Plus the cover has a tabby cat but his cat is a Maine Coon cat so false advertising. Even his girlfriend was someone he only talked to over the phone and it's all very chaste. I know there is an audience for super clean cozy mysteries, but I am not that audience. I got this as a gift so I just wanted to read something easy peasie. It wasn't good but it was OK.

The Oracle Code by Marieke Nijkamp

Published: March 10th, 2020 by DC Comics

Genre: Young Adult, Graphic Novel, Mystery

Format: Paperback, 208 Pages, Librart

Rating: 4 stars

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this one. It takes place in Batman's world. Commissioner Gordon's daughter is the ultimate hacker until one night she gets shot and her world changes forever. She ends up in a rehabilitation center where she hears voices in the walls and patients disappear overnight. It's a compelling mystery and it looks like the story will continue in more comics.