UnderCoverMonday

I had some time to kill last Friday and ventured over to Half Priced Books. What’s so great about this store is that not only can you get a really good deal on books, but you can find books that you would have otherwise missed.  I’m sharing my haul, some titles may be more familiar than others.

How Tia Lola Came to Visit Stay by Julia Alvarez (MG) When Miguel’s Tia Lola comes from the Dominican Republic to Vermont to help out his Mami, Miguel is worried that his unusual aunt will make it even more difficult to make new friends. It’s been hard enough moving from New York City and leaving Papi behind. Sometimes he wisher Tia Lola would go back to the island. But, then he wouldn’t have the treats she’s putting in his lunch box, which he’s sure helped him make the baseball team. And she really needs his help to learn English so she doesn’t use all the words she knows at once: “One-way-caution-you’re-welcome-thanks-for-asking.” So, Miguel changes his wish to a new one, and he finally even figures out a clever way to make it come true. (2001)

Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong (YA) 16 year old Emily Wu is a good daughter, good student, good artist and good friend. She works hard at school and in the Chinese restaurant she helps her parents run. But her life, which once seemed as sweet as the bao zi dumplings she and her mother make together, now feels stifling. Just as her paintings transform a canvas, Emily wants to create a new self. Then, Nick, a sexy transfer student, asks her out. His kisses and the other girls’ envious glances give Emily a thrilling disconcerting new vision of herself, so different from the one she sees in the eyes of her parents and friends. Which Emily is the real Emily? This book, written in verse, was published in 2005.

Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac (YA) is a novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two. The United States is at war, and sixteen year old Ned Begay wants to join the cause especially when he hears that Navajos are being specifically recruited by the Marine Corps. So he claims he’s old enough to enlist, breezes his way through boot camp and suddenly finds himself involved in a top-secret task, one that’s exclusively performed by Navajos. He has become a code talker. Now Ned must brave some of the heaviest fighting of the war, and with his native Navajo language as code, send crucial messages back and forth to aid in the conflict against Japan. His experiences in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima and beyond will leave him forever changed.  (2005)

When the Black Girls Sings by Bil Wright. Lahni is the only Black girl at her private prep school. She’s also the adopted child of two loving, but white, parents who are on the road to divorce. When Lahni and her mother attend a local church one Sunday, Lahni hears the amazing gospel choir, and her life takes an unexpected turn. It so happens that one of Lahni’s teachers, Mr. Faringheilli, has nominated her for a talent competition, and she is expected to perform a song in front of the whole school. Lahni decided to join the church choir to help her become a better singer. But what starts out as a way to practice singing becomes a place of belonging and a means for Lahni to discover her own identity.  (2007)

The red rose box by Brenda Woods (MG; Coretta Scott King Award Honor Book) On her tenth birthday, Leah Hopper receives a surprise gift from glamorous Aunt Olivia, Mama’s only sister, who lives in Los Angeles. It is a red rose box. Not many people in 1953 Sulphur,Louisiana, have seen such a beautiful traveling case, covered with red roses, filled with jewelry, silk bedclothes, expensive soaps and train tickets to California. Soon Leah and her sister, Ruth, find themselves in Hollywood, far away from the cotton fields and Jim Crow laws of Sulphur. To Leah, California feels like freedom. But when disaster strikes back home, Leah and Ruth are forced to stay with Aunt Olivia permanently. Will freedom ever feel like home?

And finally, I got a beautiful hard bound edition of The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian which is cased in a brightly colored, thick cardboard sleeve. All it needs is Sherman Alexie’s signature. I hate to admit that not only do I not own this book, but I haven’t read it. Yet!

Pretty nice haul, don’t you think? All these blurbs appear on the covers of the books.

I still need to post my preliminary list of Asian Pacific American and African American core lists to get reader input, then I’ll post a final list of all the books.

UnderCover Monday

First, I have to announce that the winner of last Mondays give-a-way is Paul! Congrats, Paul and welcome to CrazyQuilts. I hope to be seeing more of you here!

This year, I participated in the HolidayBook Swap organized by Ari and was lucky enough to be gifted by Amy at MyFriendAmy. I’m going to share the books she graciously sent me!

Losing my cool: how a father’s love and 15,000 books beat hip-hop culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams is the story of how the author was drawn into hip-hop culture and how his father got him out. This book was on a list of several others I sent as suggestions for my book gift. I’m interested in reading how this father used the power of books and of reading and I’m interested in finding the negative effects of hip hop in this young man’s life. I think hip-hop, like most things can be good or bad depending upon how it’s used.

“But you’re a nigger, too,” a voice said from behind me, and I half made out what I’d just heard, but not fully. I went on singing my song, which I couldn’t claim to understand on any level, but which somehow made me feel cool as hell and that was all that mattered. The voice repeated itself, louder this time: “But you’re a nigger, too, Thomas, aren’t you?”

“Huh?” I said, pivoting to see Craig standing there, his dirty blond hair cut by his mother’s Flowbee into the shape of an upside down serving bowl, like a medieval friar without the bald spot. “What did you just say?”

“You’re a nigger too, right, so how can you say that?”

“How can I say what?”

“Yo, nigga, yo nigga, how can you say that when you’re a nigger too, right?”

My mother is white, my father is black. They met in Sand Diego in the late 1960s. Both were entrenched on the West Coast front of what at the time was called the War on Pverty. After San Diego, they went up to Los Angeles. From L.A. they made their way north.

 

The Broken Bridge by Philip Pullman is the story of Ginny, a 16 year old girl being raised by her father in a small Welsh village. She’s never known her Haitian mother.

One day in the school playground they’d said, Eeny meeny, miney, Mo’. Catch a nigger by his toe, and they’d all looked at Ginney and laughed. They called her Eeny Meeny after that.

In the bath she told Dad to wash her harder.

“Why?” he said. “You’re as clean as a whistle.”

“I’m dirty,” she said.

“You’re not dirty, silly.”

“But I’m not the same as them, I want to be the same color. They call me Eeny Meeny.”

“You’re the right color for you, and they’re the right color for them,” said Dad.

She wanted to say, Well, why is it right fro me to be different from everyone else? Even Dad was white like them. But he kissed her and wrapped her in that towel and dried her hard, and she couldn’t talk till she’d forgotten what she was going to say. They stopped calling her Eeny Meeny, though.

 

The power of words and music. The power of dads. I hope these two books are more about the power of dads, as I suspect they will be.

Thanks, Amy and Merry Christmas!

UnderCoverMonday: Temptress Four

Temptress Four by Gaby Triana

published in 2008 by Harper Collins

Things were about to change.

How I knew that, I don’t know but during the closing our of the fair, I felt different. Very different. Maybe it was the heavy June humidity, or the lights and screams from the midway or how the four of us clung together, laughing too much like nothing would ever come between us, but something big was going to happen. It had to–high school was officially over.

We were standing in front of the Ring of Fire, watching the last of the seniors sneak in a final ride, when I saw it, tucked away behind an elephant ear stand. A blue and yellow tent with a hand-painted sign: Madame Fortuna Can see Your Future! 5 tickets!

The inside flap says the friends have an eight day vacation planned, but the fortune-teller will predict trouble 

“One of you will not come home”

“Bonds will be broken”

But, it’s supposed to be the best 8 days of their life! Triana has pulled me into this 239 page adventure!

SundayMorningReads

I actually missed LatinoFest yesterday. I started going years ago with my children and had so many good memories that I kept going on my own after they grew away. I knew the date was coming, but daggone if I didn’t miss it yesterday. Now, I have to wait an entire year for it to come again. And today, it’s raining.  What a weekend.

In the blog world, there’s dissatisfaction brewing from Lelac Almagor’s posting on  ReadRoger. There is so much to criticize in her essay that for me, it’s easier just to ignore it. Unfortunately, she’s given voice in a forum that brings credence to her ill-formed opinion.  Sharon Flake has articulated an insightful response where I would simply have urged Almagor to get out of her bubble are read Tanita Davis, Sherri Smith, Zetta Elliot, Varian Johnson,  Julius Lester, L. Divine and so many, many more! She reminds me of the person who recently asked me to recommend “urban authors”. I have no idea what that means, is it code for “Black authors”? Does she really want urban/hiphop fiction? Or perhaps she’s looking for what’s being calling ‘real fiction’ by majority authors?  Does she know her label has no single definition?

On another note, I’ve realized how little non-fiction I review.  I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but the numous bibliographies, histories and other fact based books should probably be reviewed with greater zeal than fiction. Why? Because the nonfics need to be verified for accuracy. And therein lies the problem with the review process: the background work that must be done. Rather than commenting on how well written, how engaging or informative, nonfics have to be examined on the merit of the author’s research. Read Debbie Resse for an idea of how it’s done.

The same holds true with fiction in some ways. We’re finding out about the inacurracies that exist in the relationship between images on a cover and those in the story. How often does the author’s culture  actually match that of story? I know of a couple of very popular books that people assume are written by Black authors, but they’re not. Does it make a difference? Read Neesha Meminger and decide. There is often telltale evidence when a person writes outside their culture, but what bothers me most about it is that too many authors outside the African American experience rarely choose to write about middle class characters, those with intact families, or much other than than crime, drugs and lacking.  Back to the same stereotypes Almagor writes about! It happens in other cultures where writers use pseudonyms and promote themselves to be Native or Latino/a or Asian. And they get published where people of color cannot. Is there a rational explanation for this?

I do have to applaud author Melissa Kantor for not only including an African American character in her recent YA book The Breakup Bible but for including racism as a major part of the story’s plot. Kanto proves that books can successfully mirror real life, because boys and girls with world around us is full of color!

Don’t forget the contest!