In this beautifully written memoir, Ta-Nehisi Coates creates poetry on the page about growing up in and around Baltimore, the son of William Paul Coates, a former Black Panther but now a more scholarly activist and “Conscious Man.” Though present in all his children’s lives, the senior Coates had seven kids by four women and that creates a complicated extended family for Coates. He describes a childhood that is a mix of pop culture, “woke” politics, and neighborhood tensions and one that has Coates negotiating […]
Another Book That Led Me to Crack Open My Wallet
Like many nonfiction books that I pick up, Becoming Ms. Burton, was featured on NPR’s Fresh Air earlier this summer. I had recently read Just Mercy and come off a spring semester of using “mass incarceration” as a model “wicked problem” that needed systems thinking to solve in my Composition 1 class. [Students then picked their own “problem” to investigate and understand better for their research project.] It was interesting then to hear Susan Burton’s story of how she hit rock bottom after the death […]
The Urban Indian Boy Enjoys Good Health Insurance
In my developmental English classes, my students and I often read Sherman Alexie’s literacy narrative, “Superman and Me,” where he describes learning to read at age three, puzzling out the meaning of text by looking at the frames of a comic book. He traces his impulse to read to his father—a man who filled the family house with books of all kinds—often purchased used and sometimes by the pound. He writes, “My father loved books and because I loved my father with an aching devotion, […]
A Novel That Made Me Add More Books to My Reading List
This book was a gift from a friend that took me far too long to get to but I’m so glad that I finally moved it to the top of my reading pile. This “fictional” story based on the true life of Beryl Markham is a compelling read because Beryl, herself, is a fascinating character who seems to have been born about 100 years too soon and who never stops struggling against what society expects her to do. In 1904, when Beryl is only a […]
Not Your Grandmother’s Baba Yaga
This had been on my to-read list for quite a while thanks to many glowing Cannonball Read reviews. I actually bought a copy of it for my sister for Christmas and I tried not to let my foot tap too loudly as I waited for her to finish it. It was worth the wait. As a kid, one of my favorite book series was Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy. I liked the way it pulled me into another world, so different from my own, but […]
Murder is Deeply Human
After spending two weeks in July on a Louise-Penny-inspired road trip, it was even more fun to return to the world of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team from the Montreal Surete. If you like thoughtful character-driven mysteries where the “who” is less important than the “why” and with a strong sense of place, this series is for you. These novels are not fast-paced tales of suspense but rather explorations of human relationships and tensions that lead to murder. Set in the Eastern Townships […]
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