A non-fiction book about Jack Robinson. Or better known as Jackie Robinson. The United States v. Jackie Robinson is not a typical biography of a baseball player. They start out with him being a child growing up as the only black family on their street. His mother’s strength and finally Jackie’s strength in the military. Few probably know that Jackie would not give up his seat on a bus either and it lead to a historic ruling, too. Finally, it ends with some of his […]
A worthy literary endeavor that left me underwhelmed
Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Underground Railroad, was another Mocha Girls Read book club selection. The novel follows Cora on her Odyssey-like journey to escape slavery traveling a magical realistic underground railroad. “Here was the true Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor – if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative.” – page 80 It begins in Africa following the first slaves as they were stolen and brought over to America. From […]
Who knew buying a small town on eBay would lead to finding your purpose in life
I had the fortune of visiting The Ripped Bodice to see Beverly Jenkins speak about her new historical romance novel, Breathless. After the event, I was kindly invited to join the LA chapter of Mocha Girls Read book club. I’m so thankful Ms. Jenkins and my favorite bookstore introduced me to a lovely book club group! Having an in-person book club kept up my motivation to read more books to review for Cannonball Read. 🙂 Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins was the February selection and much needed palette cleanser […]
An unintended theme
I trust that these two figures, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, require no introduction. Without qualification, they are two of the most important American figures of the 20th century. Contemporaries, they often took up oppositional positions, though they were fighting for the same cause: the right of black Americans to claim the equality they were rightfully owed. Both men gave their lives to the struggle, and have gone on to represent a great many things to a great number of people. Death of […]
Like a truth revealed to the self-assured, I wasn’t ready for this.
I am a white male in my 30s. Written as a letter to his 15 year old son, this is a memoir of being black in America by a 39 year old man with a life wholly different from mine. I point this out not to argue that this book has nothing to offer me, but to acknowledge that I am coming to this book with a different set of tools – a different language, even. The context I use to make sense of the […]
Louis Armstrong Is Amazing
I have read several books from the Who Was series. I recently re-read Who Was… Louis Armstrong because I had to do a Black History Month project and I remembered reading it and loving it. Who Was… Louis Armstrong by Yona Zeldis McDonough tells the story of Louis Armstrong’s life and how he didn’t get much proper schooling, he spent most of his schooling in a corrective school because him and his friends were going to shoot off a few cap guns in the street and […]