Summer Book Binging: Important Books about Race

If you are looking to expand your mind this summer...

So far this summer I've read quite a few "important" books, books that I think contribute something important to the current cultural conversations we are having about racism, social media, and social activism.

The book I've most liked so far was Dear Martin by Nic Stone, one of the most recommended books of the year so far (along with The Hate U Give, which is still on my hold list for a at least a few more weeks). The premise is interesting: after an unfortunate run-in with the police, an innocent black teen begins writing letters to Martin Luther King Jr., trying to process the incident and what he can do about the racism that suddenly seems to be all around him. What I like is that this book approaches the topics of police brutality, the inescapability of the media (both the 24 hour mainstream media and social media), and equity through a variety of perspectives (though the narrator is consistently the not-so-subtly-named Justyce). This book felt ripped from the headlines, and it reminded me of the poem "When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving", which my Honors English II class (who just graduated, *sniffle*) read in 2016.

The perspective in this story has such value for students precisely because it embraces so many perspectives. Because of interactions with white and black boys and girls of privilege through his private school, black boys from Justyce's own segregated and impoverished neighborhood, and even adults like parents and teachers, Justyce shows the reader the complexity of race relations and realities in America, and gives insight to readers who might not otherwise have exposure to these perspectives in a logical and interesting way. The School Library Journal agrees:

 "The length and pace of this well-written story make it a perfect read for reluctant and sophisticated readers alike. The main characters are well balanced and will resonate with teens. However, the voice of African American women is largely absent from the narrative. The characterizations of Justyce’s mother and his girlfriend are one-dimensional compared to some of the other protagonists."

While the SLJ has a valid point that there are some voices underrepresented in this story, I think the value of this story is that it provides a variety of perspectives. (In fact, the SLJ recommendation is that it be read in conjunction with the book below...though it also doesn't provide as much representation to women!)

Based on the recommendation of a student this year, I then read the audiobook All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. I also picked up the e-book, so that I could switch back and forth during nap time and driving in the car/making food (because, you know, that's what moms do the most of during the summer), and I fell in love with the dual-narrators.

This made me think all the way back to the George Zimmerman case of 2013 (in which a man in Florida was acquitted of shooting an unarmed black teenager who had the audacity to be wearing a hooded sweatshirt), as Rashad (voice #1), a JROTC member and artist--who happens to be black-- is beaten into the hospital by a police officer after a white woman trips over him in a convenience store. Now, this book could easily just follow this story, but instead, the book switches to the voice of Quinn, a white teen who is a top basketball player and son of a fallen soldier, who witnesses the beating in his walk to the convenience store (trying to score some beer for a party, btw!). When it is revealed that the officer involved was his best friend's brother, a man who was like a second father to Quinn, Quinn must decide which is stronger: his conscience or his loyalty to his family and white community. This second perspective helps to show the factors that complicate the story, which feels like it should be an open-and-shut case, and how race invariably matters.

One elements I really liked was the way the students acted to make a difference, and the teens had to make difficult choices. The bold act of civil disobedience (or vandalism, if you look at it from another perspective) of spray-painting "Rashad is absent again today" leads to a twitter movement reminiscent of #blacklivesmatter that shows the power of social media AND activists for organizing. I also liked the "uncertainty" of the ending; I know that this frustrated the student who recommended the book, but I think given the real-life lack of resolution surrounding these situations, the way the story ended (no spoilers) was appropriate. There were several twists in the story that complicated matters, preventing the story from being an oh-so-obvious black vs. white conflict, and making it more of a nuanced examination of society--and what teenagers today can do to shape the world around them. Although some have criticized the quality of the writing, I appreciated the authenticity of the voices, which felt all the more authentic because of the wonderful job the audiobook readers did with the two voices; when I switched to the e-book, it wasn't quite as captivating, but the plot of the story was a winner.

Pernille Ripp led me to my next book, Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed, which was chosen as a Global Read Aloud book for YA. This reminded me of another book I read, When Dimple Met Rishi, which looks at the struggles of a second-generation immigrant girl as she tries to live her American dream and please her parents, who still have old-world expectations.

This book followed Maya Aziz, an Indian-American Muslim teen who just wants to make movies. The story begins with her at a big Indian wedding, trying to avoid her mother's match-making efforts by taking wedding video.  Maya is in many ways a typical, sarcastic teen girl who feels insecure, wants to date, and wants to strike out on her own. She shares, “One thing I’ve learned: people love a camera, and when I’m filming, they see it, not me, so whenever I need to, I can quietly disappear behind my trusty shield.” We quickly learn that she secretly applied to the NYU film program--and got in--and now that it is May and the deadline for payment is looming, she has to find a way to tell/convince her parents, who want her to stay local so they can watch over her, to let her go. How will she convince her well-meaning and practical dentist parents to let her live a life more like her graphic designer aunt?

The book could easily just be about this fairly common teen issue (how do I get my parents to accept my choices whilst not disappointing them), but from the beginning there is also this other weird voice. At the end of each chapter, we see a short snippet from someone else, a person who remains unnamed but who is obviously not our narrator. About 1/3 of the way through the book, a horrific event occurs that connects the snippets to Maya and turns her world upside down. BTW--the fact that terrorism and xenophobia become issues here, in a book about a Muslim teen, is not unexpected. It could be cliche--but it feels right, likely because of the care the author took to establish the narrator's voice and the cast of minor characters surrounding her, who would otherwise be one-dimensional (i.e. the supportive friend, the racist, the rebel, the mean girls, etc.). For example, Maya's friend Kareem adds levity and perspective  outside of Maya's small town; while his voice isn't especially memorable, it provides ample opportunity for Ahmed to showcase Maya's wit:

“I wish getting a Big Mac was still my biggest concern when I pass through customs these days,” Kareem mutters. “What is it, fries?” I joke. “More like hoping I don’t get chosen for the special Secondary Security Screening lottery.” 

This book is important in that the protagonist is not a white Christian character, but a character who is American all the same. This fiction helps normalize Maya, showing how a "brown, Muslim girl" is just a girl, and defying many stereotypes whilest not pretending that issues surrounding immigration and cultural incongruities don't exist. It also asks important questions about how we decide when to make a stand, when to take action because it is the right thing to do, and how much personal risk we are willing to assume to follow our hearts. I also like how the media is used sparingly in this story, showing how it both hurts and helps our understandings of "others"--especially in light of the current debates surrounding immigration at the Southern border, which came to a head when video of children crying out for their parents led to public outcry and a reversal of family separation policy.

This also seems relevant in light of the conflicts over the "Muslim Ban" that spent over a year in the courts. This book provides another look at how our society handles immigration and religious freedom without stereotyping or demonizing.

Heady stuff, I know, but really wonderful reads!

Summer Book Bingeing: Books that Build on an Old Story

How to do it right...

It can be really tempting to build off an old story. In fact, according to authors like Thomas C. Foster (of How to Read Literature Like a Professor fame), most stories repeat the same basic premises anyway, so why not try a new take on an old story?

Well, a few books I've read so far this summer seem to provide a primer on what to do, and what not to do, when recycling.

The Overdrive (the app that allows many people with library card to downloard e-books and audiobooks) Big Library Read book is Cowboy Pride by Lacy Williams, which is a confessed re-imagining of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice set in the Wyoming frontier. I loves me a good book club, so I checked out the e-book, adjusted the night setting in the new Libby app, and read this book in about two hours...so in about 1/8 the time it would take to fly through the original. So, to start on a positive, it was short.

The problem with remaking a classic is that you will never compete with the original. Those old enough to remember when Gus Van Sant remade Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Psycho will remember how widely the film was trashed, not because it was inherently bad, but because it just wasn't as good as the widely lauded original. To quote "In Defense of Gus Van Sant's Pyscho Remake", "A remake that tries something new with the material, like David Cronenberg’s The Fly or John Carpenter’s The Thing, can be thought of as innovative. A remake that simple recreates what we’ve already seen? Well, that sounds downright nuts."

To be fair, this author doesn't copy and paste the book, and the preface clearly states that she could never do justice to the prose of the original, but that is precisely what made this book disappointing: the prose just wasn't that great. While it was interesting to think about what Elizabeth Bennett would be like in the old West (hint: still bookish and smart), the plot and conceits don't change all that substantially. For example, instead of holding a ball at his grand estate, as in the original, Bingley hosts a barn-raising. Instead of being a rich estate owner, Darcy is a rich rancher. Gossip and money still interfere with romance, and pride and prejudice abound. So, without any beautiful prose or snappy "magical" dialogue, the story just feels like a cheap imitation.

The author rightly points out that her version allows the reader to see more of the "behind the scenes" romance between Jane and Bingley and includes "cool cowboy things" like a train robbery, but I'd argue these elements are mere window-dressing that don't make up for cliche passages like "She'd never expected Nathan. Hadn't known a love so pure and true existed. She tilted her chin up, inviting a kiss, which he eagerly supplied." Reading this makes me feel a bit queasy, and not in the charming romantic way. It reminds me of a game my friends and I would play when we were teenagers, pulling one of those cheap romances off the shelves of a store, opening to a random page, and reading passionately to passers-by whatever drivel poured off the page. (Only this book is completely PG.)

While it is interesting to see things from the perspectives of Liza (Elizabeth), Janie (Jane), Bingley, and Darcy, the shifts in narration make the book more strange than helpful. While the narration allows a view into the character motivations that the original novel, with a limited third person narrator, did not provide, I'd argue this limited narration through Elizabeth's POV helped build the tension, making the reader think more deeply about the issues than if the characters merely confessed their feelings, as they do in this book. The realizations felt like they came too easily; perhaps this was because I KNEW what would happen, as the story faithfully followed the plot of the original. But then, that is the danger inherent in a remake. Unless there is a unique beauty or original twist, remaking a classic is just nuts.

With that said, I also read a fantastic take on an old story in Madeline Miller's new book Circe. I'd previously read Miller's Song of Achilles, which looked at the Trojan War of The Illiad through the POV of Patroclus, dear friend of Achilles. Circe likewise takes a relatively minor character from Greek myth and provides her with a story, including Odysseus and details from The Odyssey as almost an aside.

While The Odyssey focuses singularly on the man, the hero, Circe focuses on the woman (well, witch/demi-goddess, if you want to get technical). Instead of being a minor character in his story, Circe is imbued with a full life, complete with childhood, complex motivation (hints: daddy issues, mommy issues....really, a lot of issues with being part of a messed up divine family), and pride. The character and story are beautifully written, For example, the first paragraph of chapter one ironically states:

When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities. We spoke to fish and nurtured flowers, coaxed drops from the clouds or salt from the waves. That word, nymph, paced out the length and breadth of our futures. In our language, it means not just goddess, but bride.

I LOVE the subtle way Miller reviews the expectations for her female character, showing the subordination inherent in her position, but previewing that her ACTIONS are what will set her apart from the others and ensure her eternity--albeit as part of a man's story. The lyrical prose, imbued with both a peace and a bitterness from the start, captures the sense of the character as she is at the time of this telling (some unknown future), with the wisdom of experience that allows her to look a bit more objectively at events, but with all the "human" bitterness remaining.

I don't want to give away too much of the story, but those who have read The Odyssey will have some sense of the events that happen mid-book, when Odysseus lands on Circe's island. However, where the story goes from there is completely original and turns the myth of the hero on its face, showing a more realistic and human Odysseus...and making the Greek gods all the more wonderfully flawed.

Although it is set in the traditions of ancient Greece, this is truly a book for today, as Circe finds the power within her (both literally and figuratively) to defy the odds and do the impossible. I can't recommend this beautiful and interesting book enough.

So what went right? The author did NOT attempt a recreation. Instead, she took a minor character and told--not just Odysseus's story--but a larger, original myth from her perspective. In the process, Miller artfully weaves in the stories of other famous Greek heroes, gods, and monsters, and this keeps the narrative lively both before and after Odysseus's appearance. The combination of old-story, new perspective, and enchanting writing made this a winner.

Summer Book Bingeing Part I: Weird books

Averaging a book a day isn't normal...and neither are these books!

If books were chocolate cake, I'd weigh about 1000 pounds by now, and with all my reading, I've been a bit lax about posting. But given all I've read, I think I'm going to separate my posts by type...and see what arises!

I guess I've been really inspired by following another blogger Pernille Ripp. She is a passionate reader who not only has great advice for teachers, but also great book recommendations based on the reading she and her students do. Given many of the books are YA, which tend to be a bit shorter than other books, I guess it is no surprise that at this point I've read about 30 books this summer...with more to come!

I think the book that most surprised me so far this summer was Grasshopper Jungle, which was an award-winning book mentioned on Ripp's blog as something the boys in her class loved. It was WEIRD. Now, keep in mind, I didn't bother reading the cover, and I should have, because the second word in the front cover blurb is "bizarre". I was expecting a basic coming of age story...not something science fictionish, but then again, I loved the relationships between the main characters, the honest look at love and sex, and, of course, the banter. The dialogue was so honest, crisp, and funny that I could entirely imagine this as a movie (though because of the "raunchy" element, I'm not sure it would ever pass the PG-13 test for most teen movies...and the special effects would have to be off the charts). [BTW--I Googled it, and apparently they ARE making a movie out of this!]

I also think that this is a book not just for boys, but for anyone who appreciates quirky things, like second-hand stores and adventures to climb up on a roof to retrieve stolen shoes and skateboards...and quirkier things, like genetically altered killer mutants. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I can honestly say I didn't quite expect it--or maybe I didn't want to. While it got a bit cliche toward the end (I could imagine Will Smith and Jeff Goldbloom in Independence Day as the boys bantered and rode together in their car), I appreciated the authenticity of the narrator, who was lovably immature and just the right amount of confused to strike me as a typical--and anything but typical--teenage boy.

Speaking of teen boy narrators, I really liked Challenger Deep by award-winning author Neal Shusterman. I had no idea what to expect from this book, but I know of the author, so when this audiobook came up as available on my library app, I downloaded first and asked questions later.

I'll admit that it was a bit hard to follow at first, but that was kind of the point, as the narrator isn't fully aware of what is going on. However, through flashbacks, we quickly catch up to what led to Caden's present day problems. In a sense, the story is told in two settings: the real word and the world of a ship at sea, headed for the Marianas Trench and the deepest point on earth. The story vacillates between these settings, and I loved the way everything begins to come together and make sense for the reader as it begins to make sense for the narrator. I don't want to spoil what happens, but you can probably guess that something isn't mentally quite right for the narrator, and so this book provides a powerful approximation of mental illness. As Laurie Halse Anderson (author of Speak) said, this book is "a brilliant journey across the dark sea of the mind."

Earlier in the year I read another of Shusterman's books Bruiser, which is told through the POV of

Tennyson and Bronte, twins in a family that is falling apart because of their parents' infidelity, and the POV of Brewster, whom the student body call Bruiser, on account of his enormity. The teens seem to be worlds apart, with the twins living a middle class existence with professor parents, while Bruiser lives in a run-down house with his drunk uncle and accident-prone little brother after his mother's death. However, when they make an effort to get to know each other, the teens are surprised by what they find (I won't spoil the twist). Like Challenger Deep, this book also looked at big questions through a somewhat fantastical lens, questions such as "To what extent will be put ourselves through pain for those we love?" Although the end was a bit disappointing, I loved the premise, and how all of the characters had to explore questions of love, selfishness, and selflessness. I also liked that the surreal elements of the book didn't feel far-fetched, making the premise less of a distraction and more of a means to explore these very human questions and issues that we deal with daily in our friendships, families, and romantic relationships.

I also read several obviously fantasy/sci-fi books. One is a new classic, Cinder by Marissa Meyer, which is a futuristic take on the classic Cinderalla story that several former students have read and loved. The premise that Cinder is a cyborg who is treated as less than human by her stepmother, stepsister (the other stepsister is nice), and society raises questions about how we treat "others" today: what makes us view people as less-than-human? What about race and class really matters? This is exacerbated when she meets the teen idol prince of the realm (Earth is now made of big territories, and this one seems to be formed out of southeast Asia), who hears of Cinder's skill as a mechanic and enlists her help with an andriod. Because the prince doesn't realize Cinder is a cyborg, we get to indulge in these questions of who has value--and wonder if the prince will cast her aside if he realizes what she really is.

Also adding to the value of this book is the plague that is ravaging
the world. The plague is obviously reminiscent of the Bubonic plague of the middle ages, with its deadly, skin-color-changing lesions, mysterious origins, and hard-to-predict path through the population. As cyborgs are used as guinea-pigs to look for a cure, it becomes clear that this book is looking not at the future, but at the present, and what extent we will go to if such a pandemic were to arise today. (And there always seems to be such a threat...whether we are talking ebola in Africa or swine flu.) While the addition of the mind-controlling moon people (called Lunars) seems weird at first, the author brings together the many threads of this story into a unique take on the Cinderella story that asks a lot of important questions...but doesn't provide as many answers (as you will have to read parts 2-4 of the Lunar Chronicles to find out what happens next). I liked the empowered Cinderella, and I'm a sucker for a new take on an old story, especially when it avoids plagiarism and uses the old story to provide enough predictability to add original plot, but the audiobook didn't have as much character as I would have liked. Perhaps the reader was afraid of being too melodramatic, but I think that in a story like this, a little drama is to be expected!

Reimagining is also present in one of the best YA books of 2018 (so far) Dread Nation by Justina Ireland. Written in the tradition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which imagines what the classic love story of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy would have looked like if zombies were involved, this book imagines what would have happened had the dead risen during the Civil War. However this is a holy original story and utilizes an alternate timeline, very much like the book and Amazon series The Man in the High Castle, what would have happened had the Axis powers won World War II.

The story is told from the perspective of Jane, who is it a combat school studying to be a lady's attendant, a personal bodyguard for rich white women against the undead. As a woman of color, Jane was taken from her family as a teenager (which is the law) to train to fight the undead; while the North still won the war, the reconstruction never seemed to have taken hold in the South in this reality, so people of color (Native Americans included) are treated as second-class citizens...if not as slaves in practice (just not in name).

Fortunately for Jane (kind of....there's definite sarcasm in this, and in Jane's voice, which I love), she ends up at the best combat school for ladies, which should ensure that she receives a well-paying post should her family farm have fallen to the undead in her absence. And Jane is at the top of her class...in more ways than one. You see, her mother was the wife of a Southern Major, and so Jane is not only raised as part of a plantation family, but also as a "bastard" of some black man. (Which almost gets her killed many times.) While this means that she is treated better than much of the help on the farm--who are treated very well, given the standards of the day--she is not treated well by society. In fact, her mother hides the fact that Jane is her child from society and her husband, who was away at the time of her birth. Jane uses these terrible prejudices to her advantage throughout the story, being able to trick those who would stand in her way by feigning ignorance and illiteracy, and often this helps her during her trials.

I loved this story, which I don't want to spoil, which is part mystery, part action-adventure, part historical-fiction, and which is incredibly powerful today. I loved the inclusion of her enemy-turned friend Katherine, who could pass as white if people didn't know better, as a direct way to explore the ridiculousness of the prejudices that guide post-Civil war society. And this book isn't just about race--it's also, beneath the surface, very much about class, and how the rich make the rules (if they are white, of course). Behind the very engaging story of Jane's quest to help her friend find out what happened to his sister are the simmering tensions among the rich of Baltimore and their "help", the scientists and those who would abuse their innovations, and those who believe in equality vs. those who believe in "survival" (which seems to be a euphemism for racists, like the white power movement). And all of this is just the beginning!

There are so many twists and turns in this story that I hesitate to provide too much plot, but I loved that each time I thought I knew where the story would go next, I found a new surprise (that in retrospect completely made sense with prior information). The ending, which I won't give away, definitely leaves room for other books in the series, and from what I can see on Goodreads, there appear to be more books in the works! If you like The Walking Dead and/or historical fiction or following the #blacklivesmatter movement, you will love this book. (And if you don't like those things, you might still like following the adventures of this Marvel-esque superhero woman who kicks booty in so many ways!)

 

I have so many more books to share, some of which could fall under this heading, but I will save those for a special fantasy post :)

 

Happy Reading!