Uganda – Cannonball Read 17

Forced to leave home

Wings to Soar by Tina Athaide

March 14, 2025 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Diversity CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge April is Poetry Month. Therefore in March I decided to find a few books of poetry or novels that were prose poetry. And one of them was Wings to Soar by Tina Athaide. Currently available, I read it via an online reader copy. I do not think I will purchase copies for myself, but I think anyone who is interested in refugees, women authors or places we do not normally read about, this is the book for you. Aimed at […]

Activist and leader

Little People, Big Dreams: Vanessa Nakate by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara

September 28, 2023 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

As I said with my Lenny Henry review, I recently refound the Little People, Big Dreams series, with their new people or new to most children biography series. When I found Vanessa Nakate I said, “That name sounds familiar, who is she again?” Then I realized she was that Vanessa Nakate, the young woman who had her image cropped out of the photograph that included other climate change activists. This young woman knew that she was not just being cropped out of a photograph, but […]

Life in Africa, But Probably Not at All What You Are Thinking Of

A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

November 2, 2021 by elderberrywine 2 Comments

There was something about the writing of this account of growing up female in 1970s – 80s Uganda that struck me as different but I couldn’t quite place it. And then I read an interview with the author wherein she explained that as an African writer writing in English, you have a choice. Are you writing for an English-speaking audience, for whom explanations may be needed, or are you writing for your people? Makumbi chose the latter, and the book becomes all the much richer […]

Kids — Keep Your Dirty Hands Off ’em

January 6, 2016 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

This is another graphic novel for tweens and older, but unlike Marzi, a memoir, War Brothers is a fictionalized account of real events that have occurred in contemporary Uganda. War Brothers is about the fates of four friends as they fall under the domination of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA fills its ranks with kidnapped children who are tortured and traumatized until they either die or become child soldiers for Kony, who thinks of himself as some sort of anointed representative […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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