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.

 

Vinyl Moon

 

My Thoughts:

Snaps to black girl magic in this multi genre book about Angel, a teen sent to Brooklyn after an incident with her abusive boyfriend. In New York, she lives with a loving, hard working uncle. At her new school, she finds a teacher who guides her to reconnect with herself and reimagine her future through the books in her room as well as through the other girls in Ms. Gʻs H.E.R. advisory (Her Excellence is Resilience & Honoring Everyones Roots). The vignettes and poems are about Angel, her dreams, her awakening, her friends, her music. But it is also a song for Brooklyn in the same way that House on Mango Street is a song about Chicago. 

For English teachers, this is a mentor text for your writers, as well as a book list of what should be in the literary American canon. If as high school English teachers, we have not offered these books to our students, are we preparing them?: 

• James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, Notes of a Native Son
• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, Sula
• Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Ms. Browne, through Angel, brings these writers back into the consciousness of new readers in a format that will make them curious and perhaps pick it up on their own. As an educator and a former AP teacher, I appreciate that. I remember giving my public school students The Bluest Eye for summer reading, then spending the whole summer wondering if I was going to get called in by the principal or an irate parent. I had my intention and justification papers ready, and although I never got questioned, I knew it was a risk. I also enjoyed the little rant Angel has with the librarian about what is classic and should be read and what is not valued. Using this book as a pep talk for English teachers to pay attention to this kind of student who uses reading as a window, a mirror, a sliding glass door, as well as a healing stone is an important reminder as we start to think again about creating our own curriculum and our own resources for these times of upheaval. 

Bring Vinyl Moon into the classroom as a mentor text for writing workshop. Bring it in as a stepping stone for other books. Pair it with House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros or the Oceania vignettes of Girl in the Moon Circle by Sia Figiel. Let black and brown girl magic from the diaspora vibrate through your classroom. Wouldn't that be fabulous? I am already excited to create curriculum.

Finally, when authors bother to write letters in the beginning of the book, I like to read it. I like to hear others talk about their intentionality and their "why," so I also want to honor that.

This is a story about finding your way. This is one of so many of our stories. I hope it brings you closer to sharing your voice. I hope it lights a candle in the cavern where you hide yourself. I hope it feels safe to read these voices and know they are thinking about you being and breathing. Wherever you are.  --Mahogany L. Browne

From the. Publisher:

When Darius told Angel he loved her, she believed him. But five weeks after the incident, Angel finds herself in Brooklyn, far from her family, from him, and from the California life she has known.
 
Angel feels out of sync with her new neighborhood. At school, she can’t shake the feeling everyone knows what happened—and that it was her fault. The only place that makes sense is Ms. G’s class. There, Angel’s classmates share their own stories of pain, joy, and fortitude. And as Angel becomes immersed in her revolutionary literature course, the words from Black writers like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Zora NEale Hurston speak to her and begin to heal the wounds of her past.

This stunning novel weaves together prose, poems, and vignettes to tell the story of Angel, a young woman whose past was shaped by domestic violence but whose love of language and music and the gift of community grant her the chance to find herself again.