Book Review: Color Outside the Lines: Stories about Love / Edited by Sangu Mandanna

 

What a delightful surprise! I am NOT a romance reader, and while there were some luv stories in here, these were more than that - these were love stories. You don't see the difference? Luv stories are all romance, kissing, drooling all over each other and are gag-worthy as far as I am concerned. These stories, on the other hand, were about love. Many about romantic love, some about the start of relationships, some just about love between people.

What is even better? Each of these stories have some type of complexity: interracial, or LGBT, or forbidden relationships. Each of these stories was a little different than the others, but all of them were good. 

AND reading Color Outside the Lines is a way to sample a bunch of different authors. These are pages in which to walk in someone else's shoes and see how it feels to be someone very different than yourself. These are stories through which to learn more about yourself and others. These are stories to sip slowly - one at a time so you can digest each tale. This is honestly one of the best short stories collections I have read. I hope you might also enjoy it.

You will find this book on the shelves on Nashua South or you can find it in the Nashua Public Library catalog.

"I like how you look at me. There's a story in your eyes that I would give anything to hear."
 ~ Lori M. Lee in Starlight and Moonlight

Book Review: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You / Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

"To know the past is to know the present. To know the present is to know yourself." (Ibram X Kendi in the introduction of this book)

Why do we need to know about history? 

Why are social studies classes important?

Why do we pay attention to the social sciences?

I am sure that there are many answers to these questions, but for me I want to know about history so I can do my part in preventing history from repeating itself - at least in the ways that people in power have made choices that harm others. Also history gives us perspective on how we have arrived in today's world. And our social sciences lend a pathway into peoples' minds and realities.

Right now we are hearing a lot about racism and antiracism. Again here are some words from Ibram X Kendi, "A racist idea is any idea that suggests something is wrong or right, superior or inferior, better or worse about a racial group. An antiracist idea is any idea that suggests that racial groups are equals." 

In today's world we hear about the school to prison pipeline, we hear about black people being killed or maimed in disproportionate numbers to the percentage of people of color living in our society. We hear about people of color worried about driving-while-black or walking-while-black and parents of black children teaching their youth how to respond to police officers when they are approached. As a white person, this was never a part of the conversation in my home when I was growing up.

What can we do to make our world a better place for everyone to live? How can we make sure that we all feel safe? How can we learn about how we got to where we are today? How can I walk in the world with an antiracist presence?

Stamped is a great place to start. Here Reynolds and Kendi break things down so we understand the history that led to our present. This book is perspective changing, and Reynolds writing style is personable and enjoyable to read (no dry text book here!)

Try it and let us know what you think.

 

Book Review: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness / Michelle Alexander

Alexander shares how our black and brown men are being rounded up and placed in prisons for drug offenses that are not violent, often for long prison sentences. These criminal experiences and the resulting disruption in life, along with all that comes with having a criminal record - creates an underclass that not only hurts people of color but society in general.

The author believes that we need to listen to what Martin Luther King, Jr proposed - the end of a civil rights movement and the beginning of a human rights movement. 

Book Review: Monster by Walter Dean Myers

So why am I on a Walter Dean Myers kick? Myers wrote over 100 books, many about living black in urban areas. He died in 2014 but many of his stories are still relevant today.

Monster is about a 16-year-old Steve Harmon who aspires to be film producer, but finds himself locked up, among many black and brown teens, at the Manhattan detention center. He is on trial for murder after a store owner was killed during the course of a robbery. Steve allegedly made sure that there was no one in the store before this robbery took place. But is he guilty? Steve narrates this story through a film script that he writes as the plot develops. The title? The prosecutor calls Steve a Monster, and begins to wonder if that is true.