For the past four years, I’ve been teaching poetry as part of my social justice as creativity unit in Composition II. I’ve taught several different poets–including favorites Katie Ford, Marvin Bell, and Yusef Komunyakaa–but have also been turning to novels in verse as a means of making the poetry more approachable to young adult students. I taught an excerpt from Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming (and I will read the whole thing this CBR, for sure), Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover, and Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out […]
Dances with Dragons, Vols. 1, 2, and 3
First, a disclaimer: I typically do not care to review an entire series at a stretch. Yet when a series flows into each other and there are enough similarities that warrant talking about a series as a unit, then it makes sense to complete a joint review. I’m a picky fantasy reader, as you all know by now. But my sister had reviewed A Natural History of Dragons and called it a novel of manners. Um, yes please. If something warrants a novel of manners […]
The Pym that started it all for me last year.
Ah, the Barbara Pym experiment of 2015 has come to an end. It’s kind of sad, in a way. I’ve really enjoyed reading all of her work, and I feel like she would have been a kick in real life. I decided that even though I reviewed Jane and Prudence last year for CBR6, it would be nice to end at the beginning. I’ve still decided that Jane and Prudence is my favorite of the novels, and there are some sly references to the other […]
The light surrounding Claire
Because I decided that All the Danticat needed to be read, I went with Claire of the Sea Light next. I also have checked it out from the library twice, and have no more renewals left. It feels like defeat to check a book back in from the library without having read it–silly, I know. None of you feel this way, I’m sure. But I had to make some choices before going on vacation. Consequently, I packed more books than clothes or shoes. My parents […]
Avoiding a single story through many stories
I’ve been super enthralled with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie this CBR, and I thought I needed to read her collection of short stories to make the reading experience complete. As it turns out, there’s a speech/essay published called “We Should All be Feminists,” so I’ll read that too. But I do feel glad for reading her short story collection, as I have more teaching ideas for the next year and beyond. The Thing Around Your Neck focuses on many of the same themes, ideas, or settings […]
When I ask “Krik?” you answer “Krak!”
I’ve been in the process of reading short story collections to piece together some units for my fall course. I’ve got another collection in the wings, because diversity of texts and ideas is always a great thing. I did not expect to fall so deeply in love with Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak! that I would consider bumping one of my texts to make room for this. And yet here we are. In Haitian tradition, when someone asks “Krik?” you respond, “Krak!” It’s an invocation to […]
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