Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me

 

Stars: 3 a good author-read memoir. She sounds like she is having a conversation with you. Her personality comes through

From the Publisher:

If it weren’t for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010—and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later—she felt deeply alone; the only people who truly knew her were gone.

Emma raised her children not just to survive, but to thrive. In this intimate and heartfelt memoir, Whoopi shares many of the deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time. Growing up in the projects in New York City, there were trips to Coney Island, the Ice Capades, and museums, and every Christmas was a magical experience. To this day, she doesn’t know how her mother was able to give them such an enriching childhood, despite the struggles they faced—and it wasn’t until she was well into adulthood that Whoopi learned just how traumatic some of those struggles were.

Fans of personal memoirs such as Finding Me by Viola Davis and In Pieces by Sally Field will be touched by Bits and Pieces: a moving tribute from a daughter to her mother, and a beautiful portrait of three people who loved each other deeply. Whoopi writes, “Not everybody gets to walk this earth with folks who let you be exactly who you are and who give you the confidence to become exactly who you want to be. So, I thought I’d share mine with you.”

My Thoughts:

It is not as powerful as Michelle Obamaʻs Becoming, or Viola Davisʻ Finding Me: A Memoir, however, this is a  posthumous love letter to her mother and her brother, full of gratitude and humor. What is comforting is that the reader is left with the feeling that nothing has been left unsaid when these two important figures in Whoopi's life were alive. 

Publication Information:

Author: Whoopi Goldberg

Narrator: Whoopi Goldberg

Narration length: 6 hours, 43 minutes

Publisher: Audible.com (May 7, 2024)

By Water: The Felix Manz Story

 

My Thoughts:

This graphic novel is a biography of Felix Manz, a martyr living in Zurich between 1498 and 1527.  Water is used as a weapon of death and a tool for baptism. The watercolor art seems add serenity to a difficult period in Zurich, but I keep thinking who will want to read this? With its focus on religious persecution, plague and war in Zurich in the 1500s,  how is this story compelling to contemporary teens and tweens? 

Kirkus Reviews calls this biography "ambitious," and perhaps it is ambitious because its topic is not exactly appealing to young readers. The cover itself looks old fashioned. I can see this in my classroom, but I donʻt know who would pick it up.

From the Publisher:

In a time of social upheaval, in a city astir with dangerous new ideas, the son of a Catholic priest becomes a leader of a nonviolent revolution.

Five hundred years ago, in an age marked by war, plague, inequality, and religious coercion, there were people across Europe who dared to imagine a society of sharing, peace, and freedom of conscience. These radicals were ready to die for their vision. They were executed by the thousands—by water, by fire, and by sword—in both Catholic and Protestant states. Their stories come to life in this graphic novel series that dramatically recreates a little-known chapter in the history of the Reformation.

By Water, is a true story of friendship and betrayal set in the Swiss city of Zurich. It chronicles the conflict between establishment reformer Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) and his student Felix Manz (1498–1527), who at first reveres Zwingli as a father figure but ends up drowned on Zwingli’s orders for insisting that only adult believers should be baptized. In this dramatic visualization of the birth of the Radical Reformation, water is both wonder and weapon, a symbol of new life and a death sentence.

This action-packed, historically accurate account of young people standing up for their convictions against the corrupt political and religious leaders of their day will awaken courage and commitment in young readers today.

Publication Information:

Author - Jason Landsel

Illustrator - Sankha Banerjee

Publisher - Plough Publishing House (Mar 21, 2023)

Shining a Light: Celebrating 40 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Who Changed the World

 

My Thoughts:

This book of 40 one-page biographies of Asian American and Pacific Islanders are perfect for upper elementary and middle level readers who can get a short teaser of these leaders and then go and do research to complete their own inquiry project by finding other sources. The illustrations of each leader by Victo Ngai adds to the biography because of its use of background art and color palette. 

Many of the names were very familiar to me as someone from Hawaiʻi, like Duke Kahanamoku, Daniel Inouye, Patsy Mink, Tammy Duckworth and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. What I appreciated, though were the lesser known standouts. 

One example is number 23, Wataru "Wat" Misaka (12/21/23-11/20/19). During World War II, the Misaka family was spared imprisonment under the incarceration order so that he could attend college at the University of Utah where he was a basketball standout on their 1944 national championship. While traveling with the team, he would sometimes say he was from Hawaiʻi (he was a nisei from Utah) so that his team did not suffer from anti-Japanese pushback. Sometimes he even had to sit somewhere else other than the bench because of the racist crowds. 

For the Japanese Americans in internment camps, Wat Misaka was a beacon of hope. After he won the championship, he was drafted in the US Army, but was able in return to Utah after the war and help his team win another championship.

When he got drafted in 1947 to play with the New York Knicks, he became the first player of color to play basketball professionally. Although he only played three games before the Knicks released him, he decided to return to Utah to study engineering rather than accept the invitation to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. Because of the huge anti Japanese sentiment, this historical event was not celebrated until 1999 when he was inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame. In 2009 President Barack Obama honored him at the White House as the first person of color in the NBA.

Pair this story with #40, Sunisa "Suni" Lee, the Hmong American gymnast from St. Paul Minnesota whose father built equipment for her as the Hmong community helped contribute to fundraisers for her training, and there is a pattern of strong community and perseverance in all of these stories. 

From the Publisher:

Meet forty people who helped change the world in countless ways in this beautifully illustrated collective biography.

From scientists to sports stars, aerospace engineers to artists, every person shines in this collection. Dynamic portraits portray each person with bold colors and clever, precise details. Each biography celebrates the determination and courage of people who were on the forefront of changing society.

Using their specific talents, each individual fought for the space for people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent to be seen and treated with dignity and respect. Their important legacy lives on today.

Publication Details:

Author: Veeda Bybee

Illustrator: Victor Ngai

Publisher: Versify (March 28, 2023)

Pigskins to Paintbrushes (Nonfiction Picture Book)

 

Publication date: August 17, 2021

Author and illustrator: Don Tate

This biography about the late athlete and artist Ernie Barnes is a fabulous window into an American success story. Ernest Barnes, Jr. was badly bullied in school for being different. He was not athletic in a time when athleticism in black boys was a way out of the ghetto. Instead, he loved to observe beauty and draw, but he also lived in a place where blacks were not allowed in museums. His mother, a domestic, worked for a lawyer who let young Ernie look through his art books in his library. In high school, a coach saw his sketchbook and encouraged him to get into bodybuilding which led to Barnes playing football in high school, college and the AFL. His art, which he was able to do after his early retirement, has a dynamic flow of bodies that comes from his observations and sketching while playing sports. 

This is a new person for me and although he died in 2009, I got to meet him and his art for the first time through this children's book and spent hours reading articles about him and his pieces like "Sugar Shack" below.

Controversy and Hope

Title: Controversy and Hope: The Civil Rights Photographs of James Karales
Authors: Julian Cox with Rebekah Jacob and Monica Karales
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press

In Short: The photographs in this book tell a story of life in the impoverished south and the behind the scenes of the civil rights movement more than it talks about the actual civil rights protests and marches. This is also the story of this one photographer, Karales and how opportunity and skill can position someone to change the world through his/her lens.

My Thoughts: I was expecting the" in your face" violence of some of Bill Hudson's work, like the photo of Parker High School student Walter Gadsen being attacked by a police dog in Birmingham, Alabama. I was even expecting more of the photos like Karales' photo of the march from Selma to Montgomery - the one that is taken from below and shows the mass of faceless people with the dark clouds looming above. The authors do include that. I especially liked the photo of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking from the motel balcony paired with the photo from below of the people listening to him with the story in their faces. However, what struck me about these photos were the intimate storytelling possible when Karales honed his artist eye on small events like Martin Luther King Jr. playing with his daughter in their kitchen. Even more haunting than seeing the violence on the street were the photos Karales took of the non-violent protesters practicing passive resistance training in what looked like a basement in Atlanta. As someone from Hawaii, I also appreciated the photo of Dr. King arm in arm with Rev. Abernathy, Rabbi Eisendrath and Rabbi Heschel, all of them with leis on. For me that was the iconic Dr. King photo when I was a school girl and I'm glad I now know about the life of this photographer.

Manga Friday: The Dotter of Her Father's Eyes

Author: Mary Talbot
Illustrator: Bryan Talbot
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse (February 2012)
Rating: 3 out of 5

In short: 
This graphic novel is an intersection of two coming of age stories: one that of Lucia, the daughter of author James Joyce, and the other, Mary (Atherton) Talbot, daughter of Joycean scholar James S. Atherton.

My thoughts:
The good: Bryan Talbot is an experienced artist who can clearly bridge the transitions between the two overlapping stories. The artwork helps to alleviate the somewhat jarring back and forth of the story line, similar in intent to what Gene Luen Yang did in American Born Chinese. Also, in looking at his other graphic novels, Talbot has chosen an appropriate "voice" for his illustrations to enhance his wife's memoir as well as the biography of Lucia.

The awkward: Mary Talbot is an academic writer and this is her first foray into the graphic novel genre, which makes the rhythm of the story difficult to follow. It's not often that I have to continue to reread several pages in a graphic novel. I think some of the story threads would just cut off with an unnatural breath and then the next person's story would continue. Perhaps that was the intent - to leave the reader discombobulated as a way to mirror the tone of heartbreak in the pieces. I think that's a worthy intent, I just may have a harder time "selling" it to my reluctant middle school readers.

The one kernel of hope in the story is that like Adeline Yen Mah Fallen Leaves and Dave Pelzer A Child Called It, Mary Talbot has survived and thrived despite her family life.

Source: ARC supplied by Net Galley(dot)com for an honest review