The Nickel Boys: Reality-based Historical Fiction in the Jim Crow South from Colson Whitehead (Book Review)
The Nickel Boys is the third Colson Whitehead book I’ve read. It’s a joy to watch his skill as a writer improve each time. Of course, two of the three won Pulitzer Prizes, so I’m not the only one noticing. And this book evoked a range of emotions from cheers to jeers...Mychal Denzel Smith on why Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream (Book Review)
Mychal Denzel Smith crafted a group of stunning essays in his new book, Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream. These essays are so spot on and relevant to current events as to be fully prescient. When in fact, they’re discussing complex conditions that have...Book Review: Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Tressie McMillan Cottom tells it like it is in Thick: and Other Essays. This one sentence from the titular essay encapsulates her perspective for me. “I do not paint ethereal black worlds where white people can slip into our narratives and leave unscathed by judgment...Book Review: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas inhabits her main character Starr Carter’s voice in The Hate U Give. Starr is an African American teen living in a rough neighborhood. But her life is so much more than that. She’s got two younger brothers, plus a mom and dad who work their fingers to the...Book Review: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
We know Ta-Nehisi Coates for his nonfiction, but his fictional debut, The Water Dancer, is just as stupendous as his previous books. He builds the details of his world drop by drop, layer by layer. By the end, I felt fully immersed, although in some ways I was...Book Review: How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi covers a lot of ground in How to be an Anti-Racist. I believe we all are his intended audience, no matter our race, color, sexual or gender identities, political affiliation, or any other segmentation you might consider. He makes it clear that this...Book Review: Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari
Johann Hari did so much more than enlighten me in his book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. I met all the players in this war, from the government officials to the cartels and dealers, to those on the global leading edge of...Book Review: White Rage by Carol Anderson, Ph. D.
Carol Anderson, Ph.D tells a lot of hard truths in White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. I believe her one hundred percent, partly because a solid half of this book is scholarly footnotes. And partly because of all the other social justice reading I’ve...Book Review: Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Jewell Parker Rhodes mixes hard, cold reality with imagination in her middle-grade novel, Ghost Boys. It’s the story of a young African American boy, just 12 years old. And he dies by the gun of a police officer. So, going in I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy...Book Review: The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Richard Rothstein makes complex government-sanctioned segregation eminently clear in The Color of Law. Although he’s a researcher and academic, his writing is easy to read. It’s the content—the actions he describes—that made me angry enough to throw things. But I’m...Book Review: Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis
John Lewis creates an incredibly compelling historical memoir in Walking with the Wind. It’s one man’s experience, but it also chronicles the experience of a whole community. While it was written in 1996, so many parts ring true for today’s turbulent world. If you...Book Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Katherine Boo won the 2012 Nonfiction National Book Award for Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Subtitled Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, it is an intensely challenging book. Beautiful Forevers tells the story of a select group of slum dwellers. They live in...Book Review: When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors absolutely gutted me. I couldn’t breathe in so many parts of the book. I was holding my breath in sorrow, anger, outrage. With all this, you should know that I’m not a particularly emotional reader. I cry while...Book Review: Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson
Michael Eric Dyson tells it like it is in Tears We Cannot Stop. Subtitled A Sermon for White America, it is just that. In both structure and tone, Dyson combines his experience as both pastor and professor. It is a moving and emotional book. But it’s also exquisitely...Book Review: American Yellow by George Omi
George (Minoru) Omi’s memoir about growing up second-generation (Nisei) Japanese in 1930s and 40s America is an important story. Everyone should hear more about the tragedy of incarcerating American citizens of Japanese descent after Pearl Harbor. My mother-in-law was...Bookshop.Org Affiliate
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