On September 10, individuals and organizations around the world observed World Suicide Prevention Day with local activities and a social media campaign. I was invited to contribute photos in conjunction with a Lego activity on the theme of Connectedness, sponsored…
Category: Family
The Poetic Voice of Jacqueline Woodson
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Nancy Paulson Books) $16.99 Sometimes we pick up a book because we know the voice will be poetry. That’s always the case with novels written by Jacqueline Woodson. Through poetic snapshots in Brown Girl…
The Post-Apocalyptic Present: A Bird on Water Street
The landscape resembles the surface of a distant, inhospitable planet. The air smells of sulfur. Children carry inhalers and adults die young of cancer. There are no trees, no birds, no insects even. Periodically, alarms sound as victims of mining…
“Too Big to Fail?”–the tension between institutions and individuals in The Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely
I love novels like Brendan Kiely’s The Gospel of Winter. Besides being an engaging read, it thoughtfully examines wide-ranging and important issues in society—indeed, the questions that Kiely explores imply issues well beyond the novel’s premise of a young man…
A Great Migration Story of Hope
St. Louis, MO, near neighbor of Ferguson, was a “receiving station” of the Great Migration. Isabel Wilkerson’s THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS, magnificently recreates many journeys out of the Jim Crow states of the south to major eastern and midwestern…
Bird: An Interview with Crystal Chan
“Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John. His name was John until Grandpa said he looked more like a Bird with the way he kept jumping off things, and the name stuck. Bird’s thick, black hair poked…
Exploring False Consciousness and Intersectionality: A Review of Willow
In Willow (Candlewick, 2014), Tonya Cherie Hegamin’s historical novel set in 1848, Knotwild Plantation borders the Mason-Dixon Line between slave state Maryland and free state Pennsylvania. There are no fences or guards—only a stone marker that separates the enslaved black…
YES! WE ARE LATINOS
YES! WE ARE LATINOS By Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy, pictures by David Diaz Voices! Power and pride singing in this book is felt in each of the thirteen distinctive narrative poems. Each poem is told in the…
What Makes Family: A Review of Kinda Like Brothers
Coe Booth has captivated readers and critics alike with her three gritty, fast paced novels of urban life in New York City: Tyrell, Kendra, and Bronxwood. This bard of the Bronx writes of tough times in the language of her…
APPLESAUCE a picture book about fathers & sons
APPLESAUCE by Klaas Verplancke Dads get grumpy. Kids get ornery. Sometimes after hearing “No!” children stomp off to their rooms thinking that some OTHER Dad might be a much nicer Dad. APPLESAUSE, a picture book by Klaas Verplancke, is funny…