Everything Sad is Untrue: (a true story). Audiobook

 

Rating: 4 out of 5 | a coming of age story that we have not yet heard

My Thoughts:

Plot/Theme--

This coming of age story, read by the author, is an interesting look into what it is like to grow up as an Iranian immigrant in middle America, specifically in Oklahoma. Khosrou, called Daniel by the white people, is a middle schooler in Oklahoma. His stories, long winded and tumbling like the tornadoes of Oklahoma, are likened to the kinds of stories Sheherazade must have told in One Thousand and One Nights. In other words, these stories  sound fantastically horrible and fictional, and yet I think they are told by 12-year old Daniel, as a way to live another day in this hostile classroom.

He uses the middle school strategy of talking about gross things like poop and blood, but in a way that is poetic and heartbreaking. . . because yes, we know that this is true. When Khosrou continues to emphasize why his mother is unstoppable, as well as how his father is immovable, it is heartbreaking. 

Recommendation --

As this child's culture is not familiar to me, and probably to most middle schoolers in Hawai'i, the audiobook, either as a read along or standalone, is the best introduction to this "window" memoir. Readers need to hear the patois of the author and how he pronounces those names and words that are not foreign to him, but foreign to our eyes and ears. That is the best way to respect his story. 

From the Publisher:

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the
moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy...and further back to the fieldsnear the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers
bled red like the yolk of the sunset had burst over everything, and further back still to the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan. Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, Daniel weaves a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story).

Publication Information:

• Author/Narrator: Daniel Nayeri
• Publisher: Listening Library
• Release Date: August 25, 2020

How to Build a Fashion Icon: Notes on Confidence

Rating: 3 for a memoir that teaches some powerful rules on self efficacy and confidence

My Thoughts:

If you are into fashion, you will of course know Law Roach and Zendaya. However, the best way to read the book is to listen to the audiobook and have Law Roach read his words. I started reading it because he was one of the new judges on Project Runway (when Heidi Klum also came back to host). Law is brutal but speaks slowly and clearly. He knows what he likes and what he does not like. His taste level and eye for fashion that suits a certain body type is trusted by many women of different sizes.  

Learn about his travel up into the fashion world, going from faking it till he makes it, to being able to retire early.

From the Publisher:

Law Roach is the mastermind behind looks that have broken the Internet time and again—from Zendaya at the Met Gala to Anya Taylor-Joy at the Golden Globes, from Lewis Hamilton’s iconic streetwear to Céline Dion’s style renaissance. Nobody knows better than Law how to turn an outfit into a moment of fashion history.

In a little over a decade, he’s gone from industry outsider to the most celebrated name in style, having been honored two consecutive years with the Hollywood Reporter’s prestigious Stylist of the Year award and receiving the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s inaugural Stylist Award in 2022.

Now, for the first time ever, Law shares the secrets of his approach. With How to Build a Fashion Icon, he takes readers behind the scenes of his process and journey, revealing his tips, tricks, and most memorable styling moments to show readers how to live their most iconic and fashionable lives.

Part self-help guide, part manifesto, this book guides readers step-by-step through that process, and along the way, Law weaves in personal anecdotes—from his childhood in the Southside of Chicago to the first time he styled Zendaya—with practical exercises to help readers cultivate the most essential feature of iconic style: confidence.

Publication Information:

Author: Law Roach

Narrator: Law Roach

Publisher: Recorded Books (Oct 01, 2024)

Listening length: 5 hours 15 minutes

 

Whale Eyes: A memoir about seeing and being seen

 

Rating: 4 for creating a sliding glass door into the author's life

My Thoughts:

At the beginning of this second Trump presidency, as the power barriers and balance scales were torn down, I vowed that for the next four years, I would not read any book authored by white authors. When I look at the publishing list, when I see what is coming up on my Net Galley feed, when I look at the books on the Goodreads challenges, they are predominantly white authors. As a professor of teacher education, specializing in middle and secondary language arts, I have always touted the idea that the western canonical literature should be a supplement equal to literature by indigenous authors, authors of color, and queer authors. 

So why did I read this book?

I read this book because I saw the New York Times opinion video that Robinson created about his eye condition first. This video is part of a series on "overcoming your discomfort with disability." I realize, and I should have known this already, that disability is also part of the underrepresented narrative in our schools. This memoir is about the author's struggles with strabismus and other eye ailments that he simply calls whale eyes. There are many educators that did not have a clue on how to differentiate for him, and that is tragic. There are the taunts and how strangers do not look him in the eyes, but this is not a memoir full of pity and despair.

This memoir does not shy away from the fact that his world was not ready to teach a kid like him, however, it is also a way for non disabled kids to really read this as a sliding glass door into his condition. With line drawings by Brian Rea, the author and illustrator help readers to feel a little bit of what Robinson deals with. This is the beginning of the empathy journey for readers, but the author also offers up some advice and hope for disabled students. Even if the multiple surgeries, 3-D glasses, etc. did not work for him, Johnson shows them how their disability does not make a person abnormal. 

At the most crucial teaching point of students' lives (middle school), this memoir will help all readers, abled and disabled to understand how to be better humans. 

From the Publisher:

Told through an experimental mix of intimate anecdotes and interactive visuals, this book immerses readers in James’s experiences growing up with strabismus, allowing them to see the world through one eye at a time.

Readers will get lost as they chase words. They’ll stare into this book while taking a vision test. They’ll hold it upside down as they practice “pretend-reading”…and they’ll follow an unlikely trail toward discovering the power of words.

With poignant illustrations by Eisner Award–nominated artist Brian Rea, James’s story equips readers of all ages with the tools to confront their discomfort with disability and turn confused, blank stares into powerful connections.

Publication Information:

Author: James Robinson

Illustrator: Brian Rea

Publisher: Penguin Workshop (March 18, 2025)

Reading age: 10 and up

Bad Boy: A Memoir

 

Ratings: 4 for a middle grade memoir to be used with his books/author study

My Thoughts:

I remember standing in one of those infamous NCTE lines in the exhibit hall for Walter Dean Myers back in the early 2000s. NCTE is the National Council for Teachers of English. This national organization has the most fabulous exhibit hall full of publishers who bring their YA and children's authors to sign ARCs, advanced reader's copy of books. When there is a line, someone fabulous is at the end of it. It is how I have met Laurie Halse Anderson, Matt de La Pena, Gary Paulsen, Angeline Boulley, Gene Luen Yang and Walter Dean Myers.  He was already an established author, a tall, slightly stooped gentleman. Nothing like what is in this book, buth if you have read his YA novels, Somewhere in the Darkness, Scorpions, Monster, you will relook at this memoir as a tale to English teachers about the importance of finding student gifts and overlooking bad behavior for boredom. Often the students that act out are highly intelligent and need to be challenged to find their passion. This is a boy who was too smart for school. He was too energetic for walls that feel like cages. He continued in his career to write about these boys/men on the liminal edge. I read this and listened to the audiobook narrated by actor Joe Morton. 

From the Publisher:

As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously—he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer (and he eventually succeeded).

But as his hope for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and to his books for comfort.

Publication Information:

Author: Walter Dean Myers

Publisher: Harper Collins (October 6, 2009)

Audiobook narrator: Joe Morton

Finding Me: a memoir

 

My Thoughts:

I do not have to have read this book to know that this is a fabulous book. I feel privileged to hear Viola Davis narrate her own story of abject poverty and hunger, struggle, anxiety, heart break and shame. This is a powerful, powerful memoir. I feel like I see her now, not as an actress, but as a real person. Why? Because I found myself sobbing as I was driving home. I found myself listening to her tell her story rather than call my husband as I navigated through after work traffic. 

I borrowed this audiobook from my local library and there was no waiting list. I feel blessed. Maybe other patrons have already heard it. Maybe I just got lucky, because when I went to return it early, there was already someone waiting.

This is the memoir of the year for me. There is no doubt. 

Honey don't try to label or define me, cuz I'm not w ho I was ten years ago or ten minutes ago. I'm all of that and then some. And whereas I can't live inside yesterday's pain, I can't live without it.

From the Publisher:

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you. 

Publication Information:

Author: Viola Davis

Narrated by: Viola Davis

Audiobook Publisher: Harper Audio (April 26, 2022)

Two Tribes, graphic memoir

 

My Thoughts:

This graphic story inspired by Emily Bowen Cohenʻs life, is about Mia who lives with her mom and new stepfather. She is sent to Jewish day school and as a family, they practice Jewish traditions. But Mia is also part Muskogee from her biological fatherʻs side. Like her mom, her dad lives with his new family in Oklahoma. Mia sticks out at her Jewish day school because she does not look like her classmates, and that just makes her hungry to get to know her Native American side of her identity. Her plan is to take her bat mitzvah money and sneak away to Oklahoma to visit her dad and his new family. It is a little disturbing that her mother does not seem to see her or that the teachers at the Jewish school do not curb the ethnic shaming by the students, especially when Semitic attacks are prevalent in the world. 

Her mother eventually finds out and is very upset that Mia left and was staying with her dad and his family, but eventually she understands that the divorce is not about Mia and Mia should not be isolated from both sides of her family. 

As teachers we cannot control parents, but it is our job to ensure that all students understand their identity as well as the gifts that come with being and/both, not one or the other. 

This is another book out of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint of Harper Collins Children's Books. 

From the Publisher:

Mia is still getting used to living with her mom and stepfather, and to the new role their Jewish identity plays in their home. Feeling out of place at home and at her Jewish day school, Mia finds herself thinking more and more about her Muscogee father, who lives with his new family in Oklahoma. Her mother doesn’t want to talk about him, but Mia can’t help but feel like she’s missing a part of herself without him in her life.

Soon, Mia makes a plan to use the gifts from her bat mitzvah to take a bus to Oklahoma—without telling her mom—to visit her dad and find the connection to her Muscogee side she knows is just as important as her Jewish side.

Publication Information:

Author, Illustrator: Emily Bowen Cohen

Publisher: Heartdrum (August 15, 2023)

Abuela Don't Forget Me

 

My Thoughts:

Rex Ogle follows his award winning free-verse #OwnVoices memoirs Free Lunch and Punching Bag with his newest offering, Abuela, Don't Forget Me. The author continues to stay in touch with his grandmother and as her memory starts to get tangled and confused in her mind, her grandson keeps her story alive through his poetry.

Like the other books, this is heart-wrenching and hard to read in its violence and abuse. However, in Abuela, Ogle brings forward this steady, strong woman who was his source of love and support. He brings forward through the poems all the little things (like the game of hiding in the hamper until she finds him) as well as the big things like accepting all of his collect calls, and wiring him money so he can always come home to her red-brick house in Abilene Texas. 

This book is definitely hard to read because of the cycle of abuse and poverty. I want to say it comes from his mother, but his mother is also reacting as a victim so it is hard to only blame her, but she is to be pitied, and Ogle shows this pity through his abuela and how she does not react even when her grandson lashes out at his own abuela out of shame and pity for his own different-ness. 

This does not hold back any punches and feels a little self indulgent, but that self-indulgence just highlights the strength of love his grandmother has for her family, and for the author. Our memories for our elders need to show the sacrifices and the ugliness in order to show the strength and resolve. This book does that for her. 

From the Publisher:

Rex Ogle’s companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humor, heartbreak, and hope into life-affirming free verse that honors his grandmother’s legacy.

In his award-winning memoir Free Lunch, Rex Ogle’s abuela features as a source of love and support. In this companion-in-verse, Rex captures and celebrates the powerful presence a woman he could always count on—to give him warm hugs and ear kisses, to teach him precious words in Spanish, to bring him to the library where he could take out as many books as he wanted, and to offer safety when darkness closed in. Throughout a coming of age marked by violence and dysfunction, Abuela’s red-brick house in Abilene, Texas, offered Rex the possibility of home, and Abuela herself the possibility for a better life.

Abuela, Don’t Forget Me is a lyrical portrait of the transformative and towering woman who believed in Rex even when he didn’t yet know how to believe in himself.

Author: Rex Ogle

Publisher: Norton Young Readers

Publication date: September 6, 2022

All Boys Aren't Blue

 

My Thoughts:

This memoir-manifesto is a series of personal essays about accepting multiple identities in multiple circles, finding or redefining manhood and masculinity, learning to love oneself and the privilege of being raised by a grandmother who demonstrates unconditional love, strength and acceptance. It is obvious that the author has done a lot of work and reflection. He offers up his story so that  other queer youth can see that light at the end of their own journeys.

This book has been banned across the nation. Don't let the bullies build up walls and fences to keep this away from teens that need it as a mirror, a window and a sliding glass door.

From the Publisher:

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

Author: George M. Johnson

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Publication date: April 28, 2020

Pocket Change Collective: Food-Related Stories

 

My Thoughts:

This is a very short (65 pages) personal account of food and the lessons learned from food and cooking by chef and activist Gaby Melian. It was short enough that I finished it on my airplane commute between Honolulu, Oahu and Hilo, Hawaii island - about 40 minutes with time to spare. These are heart felt anecdotes about the different ways in her life that food has not just taught her lessons, but saved her life. 

Each of her mini chapters starts with Food is. . .and lists one truth. For example, her last chapter or vignette is Food is Love. From the first paragraph:

Oftentimes, I ask "Have you eaten yet?" before I say "Hello." You have to understand that it is not just a result of an ever-curious stomach, although that surely plays a part. It is out of a deep, deep love for every aspect of cooking, down to the very atoms.

Although the anecdotes are short, I feel like I learned more about Ms. Melian than if I read a traditional memoir. I wish the purpose of these books were not to be small books for big ideas, only because I was hoping for some recipes, but I like the concept of pocket change literature. It is like carrying a poem in one's pocket for poem in a pocket day. It has to carry the most punch to be shareable and fit in your pocket, like this series.

Like a good poem or a great vignette, essay, short story or collection of shorts like this, the publishers want to leave an impression in a short amount of time. What this book has done is to leave an impression but also cause me to search out more from this series. I spent more time researching than reading the book. So here is what I found. The Pocket Change collective is a series out of Penguin Random House. This 10 title series is touted as "a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists." 

Other books in the Pocket Change Collective series: The New Queer Conscience by Adam Eli; Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon; Imaginary Borders by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez; This is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew; Concrete Kids by Amyra León; Taking on the Plastics Crisis by Hannah Testa; Continuum by Chella Man; Skate for Your Life by Leo Baker.

From the Publishers:

Pocket Change Collective was born out of a need for space. Space to think. Space to connect. Space to be yourself. And this is your invitation to join us. This is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists.

"Food rescued me so many other times -- not only because I sold food to survive. I cook to entertain; I cook to be liked; I cook to be loved." In this installment, chef and activist Gaby Melian shares her personal journey with food -- from growing up in Argentina to her time as a Jersey City street vendor and later, as Bon Appetit's test kitchen manager. Powerful and full of heart, here, Melian explores how we can develop a relationship with food that's healthy, sustainable, and thoughtful.

 

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

 

My Thoughts:

This memoir by indie rockstar Michelle Zauner is the best kind of eulogy to the author's Korean mother. It captures through metaphors of culture, language, place, face moisturizers, food, even a kim chi refrigerator the complex relationship between a mother and a daughter. As a mixed Asian daughter of a mixed Asian daughter of an Asian daughter. . . this series of essays/chapters makes that obvious connection to my own relationship with food as love as mother and grandmothers, sisters, and daughters, even granddaughters.

What this book made me remember was that I have always liked memoirs, even when I was actually a middle grades and high schooler. I especially liked memoirs of people that were not widely known because when I got to the end, searched for more information about them to continue the journey. This is no exception. I ended up looking on my Amazon Music account to find Psychochomp, the album she started writing as her mother was dying. She chose to put a picture of her mother on the cover, reaching toward the camera.

I even found a Youtube interview where Maangchi, the Korean food blogger that helps Zauner to heal through food,  is talking to Zauner and Sarah Lee of Kimbap Lab about Budae Jjigae "army base stew" with ramen noodles, Spam and Vienna sausage.

Finally, as I read this, I thought about my students in both middle and high school who were also in the middle of caring for their own dying mothers. They are etched in my memories as we tried to figure out how to both support them and bring some sort of normalcy into the time away from home. I hope they are well. I hope that a piece like this will help them heal and be a mirror for their own complex experience. I hope this is a sliding glass door and a window for students to think about their own relationships with their parents. Mostly, I hope they learn to cook the kinds of comfort foods that will give them peace later in life. 

From the Publisher:

From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

Spotted Tail: Picture Book

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Author; Jim Yellowhawk, Illustrator

This memoir/children's book is about famous statesman and Lakota leader Spotted Tail. What makes this a children's book gem is that the illustrations are just gorgeous, which makes up for the fact that there is just way too much small text.

Once you read through the words, though, Spotted Tail's life is an important history to pass on. We need more sliding glass door books like this that bring readers into a life perhaps unknown until now. What it does for middle and high school readers is that it gives an important message about telling our elder's stories lest they be forgotten. It encourages young writers to do their own oral histories and turn them into books. It also will encourage young readers to read more. 

If the story does not grab them, though, the illustrations will. 

From the Publisher:

Named as one of the best books of 2019 by American Indians in Children's Literature, this biography of Spotted Tail traces the life of the famous Lakota leader who expertly guided his people through a pivotal and tumultuous time in their nations history as they fought and then negotiated with the U.S. government. Spotted Tail is remembered for his unique leadership style and deep love for his people. Today a university is named in his honor.

 

Educated: A Memoir

 

My Thoughts:

As far as western education, this is a memoir that really talks about the idea of pulling one self up by one's own bootstraps. What this shows me is that pulling one self up is never done solo, and the learning is in the process. It has taken me a year and a half to read this but it has taken the author much longer, so it's ok.

This is also about truth and perspective and the decisions people make out of brokenness and mental illness. 

From the Publishers:

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Citation I kept:

“This is a magical place,” I said. “Everything shines here.” “You must stop yourself from thinking like that,” Dr. Kerry said, his voice raised. “You are not fool’s gold, shining only under a particular light. Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were. It was always in you. Not in Cambridge. In you. You are gold. And returning to BYU, or even to that mountain you came from, will not change who you are. It may change how others see you, it may even change how you see yourself—even gold appears dull in some lighting—but that is the illusion. And it always was.”

Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band

 

Authors: Christian Staebler, Sonia Paoloni

Illustrator: Thibault Balahy

Release Date: October 27, 2020

From the Publisher:

You've heard the hit song "Come and Get Your Love" in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, but the story of the band behind it is one of cultural, political, and social importance.

Brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas were talented Native American rock musicians that took the 1960s Sunset Strip by storm. They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.

Created in cooperation of the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni with artist Thibault Balahy take painstaking steps to ensure the historical accuracy of this important and often overlooked story of America's past. Part biography and part research journalism, Redbone provides a voice to a people long neglected in American history.

My Thoughts:

This band and this song was a little before my time so until the music came out on Guardians of the Galaxy, I was not aware of Redbone or "Come and Get Your Love," however, once you hear it, this song is sooooooo catchy. Thank goodness for YouTube and its ability to memorialize the song and the singers. 

I love Indigenous and minority feel good stories that have to do with triumph versus reality, social justice wins versus protest and loss. I also love when the myriad of spider web connections catches me unaware (well in real life I do not love the idea of walking through a spider web, but metaphorical web encounters - I am all for it).

So the spider web story starts like this - a couple weeks ago I am on NetGalley showing my English language arts student teachers how and where I find books. This is part of my "live your craft" lecture. Anyway I am on Zoom, sharing my screen, and I go to NetGalley to show them how you can create a profile of book preferences, see what they have and I wanted to show them how to request books. Under YA and graphic novels, Redbone pops up on my computer. These companies and their algorithms know me and know that I like memoirs and am always on the hunt for Indigenous, minority, (non-Default White package) literature, both prose and graphic forms.

I can read it now so I click on it and it sits in my dashboard (and I go about my days).

Today, there was a Graphic Jam webinar from one of the big YA library sources (part of my lecture of living your craft is also to hang out with the YA librarians and go to the webinars that they go to) and they start talking about Redbone. I go to YouTube to get the video (above) and go to Amazon to buy the book, when [gasp!] I cannot see it because it has not released yet. I took a chance and went to NetGalley and happy day - I actually had already put it on my queue based (see, stepped in the spider web). 

What I love about this story is that as another Indigenous person, I love to see that process of not necessarily "coming of age" but "coming of identity." Each of us embraces our cultural identity at different points. It is a painful process sometimes because we need to first turn our back on survival through assimilation and be vulnerable to step out of our safe bubble of invisibility or "passing." Redbone does just that. From the brothers Lolly and Pat changing their last name to Vegas versus Vasquez to sound more stage name fabulous and less Indian to getting advice from Jimmy Hendrix that it is obvious that they are Indian (not Mexican) and they cannot forget their roots. Hendrix suggested Redbone in 1967 but it was a seed that was planted and would take another three years before the boys could step into their identity as Redbone. The journey of stepping out of invisibility in this story is a powerful because when the text is sparse, the impact hits home more. 

This book needs to be read. This voice needs to be heard. These stories need to be told. 

I just found their booktrailer at the IDW Publishing booth (NCTE 2020) so sharing it here:

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

From the Publishers:

Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa's tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man's relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional, unconditional love.

My Thoughts:

I am not sure what impact Trevor Noah, a South African comedian, will make in American cultural history. Trevor Noah took over the Daily Show after John Stewart left, but I am not sure how wide an audience he has. Still, as a memoir, this is a good read. His story helps to open up South African life in a way that exemplifies how difficult in apartheid it was to be colored  both in the black and the white community. What is strong about this memoir is Noah's voice. His comedy based on tragedy and laughing through difficult times is very appealing for readers. I am sure the audio book, as long as he is reading, will be a great "read" in your ear. 

Best Non-YA 2019

There is just one, but the writing was beautiful.

Last words

It's not about being perfect. It's not about where you get yourself in the end. There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.

Becoming

When opportunity is not luck

This memoir by the former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, is inspiring not because of what she did, but because of how she reflects on how she has "become" who she is. It is a reflection of a life so far and inspiration for other girls who are born outside of privilege to see that becoming our best selves takes hard work, love, ambition, spirituality, passion and bravery. Yes, this is about the opportunities that she has taken, and it is true that as people of color, we may not seem to get the same opportunities as those who come from privilege, however, when children are willing to value and invest in themselves, it is not that the opportunities come, but that they see smaller steps as opportunities. That is really what Ms. Obama reflects in her work. The little steps that she took, that were available to others, add up together to create the place she is in now. 

The important parts of my story, I was realizing, lay less in the surface value of my accomplishments and more in what undergirded them--the many small ways I'd been buttressed over the years, and the people who'd helped build my confidence over time. I remembered them all, every person who'd ever waved me forward, doing his or her best to inoculate me against the slights and indignities I was certain to encounter in the places I was headed--all those environments built primarily for and by people who were neither black nor female. 

Success is not tied to achievement

Michelle Obama is from the southside of Chicago. One of the most telling depictions of what that means is in the middle of the book where she shares photos from her personal collection. There is a kindergarten photo with a fairly diverse group of students, including one Asian child, to her 5th grade picture at the same school. Within those six years, the ethnic makeup of the school moved from ethnically diverse, to 100% African American.  In that atmosphere she got into Princeton for undergraduate and Harvard for law school. She was an associate for a prestigious firm in Chicago which is where a senior partner asked her to mentor an incoming summer associate: Barak Obama. To some, this is the trajectory and the turning point of her becoming Michelle Obama, but her passion was elsewhere. For her, success was not tied to achievement, but she had to reach for that ladder and climb those rungs first before she could later in her life choose her children first, swallow her ambition to allow room for her husband's own vision and passion, and understand that collective achievement may look more like personal sacrifice than personal success, but that this really, was part of the becoming. 

Last words

It's not about being perfect. It's not about where you get yourself in the end. There's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there's grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.

The Sun Does Shine

The Sun Does Shine: How I found life and freedom on death row

From the publishers:

In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty-nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.

But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence—full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty-seven years he was a beacon—transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty-four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.

With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty-year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

My thoughts:

In education, we call things like grit, values, persistence, work ethic, faith, and collaboration as "soft" skills. They are off content skills that are not graded or tested, but students who have these soft skills seem better equipped not just for school but for life. 

The wrenching memoir of an innocent black man who spent 30 years on death row in Alabama not for any crimes he committed but for being poor, black and convenient is really a model of how these soft skills helped Mr. Hinton to survive on death row. He not only survived, but he helped others, even if it was just to help others to escape their minds for a little while. 

This is a story of compassion and unconditional love. In this world of #blacklivesmatter, this is a story of hope, faith and love. 

Digital galley provided by Net Galley and Macmillan Publishers for an honest review

Published March 27, 2018

Josephine (A memoir in verse)

Author: Patricia HRuby Powell
Pictures: Christian Robinson

In short: This memoir-in-verse relates the story of Miss Josephine Baker, her rags-to-riches rise, her entertainment career and mostly her passionate work for equality and an end to segregation.  This book is a Coretta Scott King Book Award, Honor, for the Illustrator, a Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award, Honor, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Nonfiction Honor.

 My thoughts:  I am always looking for memoirs in verse. I think as a reader, putting the story in verse, especially for a musician, helps the reader feel the rhythm of that person's life. What I especially thought was a nice touch was how Powell used some actual quotes from Ms. Baker and put that prose into poetic form.

"I improvised, crazed with the music. /Even my teeth and eyes burned with fever./I leapt to touch the sky./When I regained earth/it was mine alone."

As a children's book or tween book, it does not shy away from the controversy and racism of that time. It does a good job of recording the ways that Ms. Baker tried to integrate herself into white society. However, I was left with more questions about this controversial figure. I still wanted to know why she continued to bleach her skin to fit in with high society. In other words if she was so interested in integration, why was she trying to look more white?

Another thing I wanted to see was how she was as a mother. Yes she adopted children from different ethnic backgrounds to make her "rainbow tribe" but then she is seen abandoning her husband for long stretches in Paris, coming back to divorce  him, and nowhere is there a mention of the children. Did she leave them with her husband, take them with her? I could not tell if the adoptions were for show or what she was like outside of the limelight.

I think as a memoir in verse, these types of questions left at the end are great for readers who want to know more and it will encourage them to seek more answers. The author does give references for further reading at the end so it is a place to start.