Patricia Hruby Powell

“Huda F Are You?” by Huda Fahmy

March 6, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

“Huda F Are You?” by Huda Fahmy (Dial 2021) is a graphic novel “dedicated to my mom (who wants everyone to know she hates the title).” This book is funny, insightful, and heart-warming from beginning to end. It is autobiographical but not strictly an autobiography.

Huda is a hijab-wearing (hijabi) Muslim American who is having an identity crisis, as most teenagers do. At her old school her identity was the hijabi girl. The family moves to Dearborn, Michigan where many girls are “the hijabi girl.” Is she a hijabi fashionista or athlete or gamer? Well, she’s not any of those things. Who is she?

Huda has four sisters and her mother changes up the pairs by reassigning their bedrooms periodically—which all the sisters find excruciating, but Mom wants them all to bond. Huda characterizes each sister with a perfectly simple yet profound drawing and labels them, “The sporty one, the smart one (Huda), the popular girl, the mysterious one (dotted outline and a question mark for a face), the funny one. Yep! They basically birthed a girl band.” Later she has the five sisters striding over a crosswalk, a doppelganger of the Beatles “Abbey Road” album cover.

We learn a lot of Muslim culture—at least the Fahmy family’s culture. Higher education is obligatory, loans are taboo making scholarships a necessity. Expectations and pressure are high. Classmates and teachers mispronounce Huda’s name (Honda, Hydra, Hubba…) throughout the story. Insults to Muslims are rampant, “goat-lover” “boater” “’cuz you came fresh off the boat.” Sometimes the insults arrive out of ignorance, maybe, such as, “I love how hairy your hands are.” “Must be like having a cat you can pet whenever you want.” Huda says, “Yes, it is exactly like that, Yay me.”—with the picture of her face saying something quite different.

Fahmy draws Huda with little Hudas sitting on her shoulder from time to time who voice some of Huda’s opposing thoughts. Or she draws herself as a cubist Picasso when she says “I didn’t fit in at my old school . . . So why should I expect to fit in here?” A universal student quandary.

Her parents tell her, “You’re going to be a lawyer.” But what does Huda want? “I fake interest in whatever other people are talking about.” Can she base a whole personality on being smart? Getting 100s. Huda is depressed at home so her mother thinks she’s on drugs. She’s not.

Jon, a smart boy, says he likes her art. So she tells Jon she likes him. He says, I’m not your type. One teacher is clearly Islamaphobic. Her mother tries to support her at a meeting with the principal, but Huda retracts her accusations of the prejudiced teacher and breaks her mother’s heart. Picture: Huda crushing a human heart in her hand. But the principal must be insightful because suddenly the Islamaphobic teacher is giving Huda deserved As. Huda and her mother reconcile and more. Her mother is a support and “Huda F Is Gonna Be Fine.” I loved this enlightening and universal story.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning books: Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore. Books forthcoming about women’s suffrage, Martha Graham, and Ella Fitzgerald. talesforallages.com

“In the Wild Light” by Jeff Zentner

February 13, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

In a small Appalachian town, Cash has lost his mother to the opioid crisis. His best friend, Delaney, has a mother who appears to be losing the opioid battle. She has no concern for her daughter. But the two teens have met at a Narateen meeting and became immediate friends in Jeff Zentner’s “In the Wild Light” (Crown 2021).

Thank heavens for Cash’s grandparents, Papaw and Mamaw who love them both. Delaney is no ordinary girl. She is being pursued by the press for having discovered a mold in a cave that acts as a powerful penicillin. She credits Cash as being co-discoverer, but he knows he only paddled her into the cave in his canoe. He loves the backwoods. And he loves his grandparents. Unfortunately, Papaw has emphysema and is being kept alive with an oxygen tank. Mamaw is manager of a Caesar’s Pizza and brings home a pizza every night for their dinner. These people are living hand to mouth.

Delaney is offered a scholarship to an expensive STEM high school, Middleford, in Connecticut, but how can she go alone? It’s too intimidating. Even in Sawyer, Tennessee, she’s a misfit. This ivy league prep school would be impossible. But she gets a scholarship offer for herself and for Cash as her co-discoverer. But how can Cash leave his failing Papaw?

Papaw and Mamaw urge Cash to go to the Connecticut school, as do his aunts Betsy and Mitzi. They want a better life for their orphaned boy. He’s done fine at school in Tennessee but he knows he’s not up to ivy league standards. Delaney, however, is a genius and this is her chance. It takes a lot of chapters to get the two out of Tennessee, but the reader knows it will happen. And yep, it’s rough at Middleford, socially. Delaney excels and the teens find two empathetic friends and Cash finds poetry.

His poetry teacher, who also happens to be from Appalachia, tells him, “Every hurt, every sorrow, every scar has brought you here. Poetry lets us turn pain into fire by which to warm ourselves. Go build a fire.”

Writing poetry, which is brand new to him, helps Cash through the agonizing events of his young life and gives him a direction. As do Alex and Vi, their new friends. This is a story of sweet new love, overcoming devastating hardship, grief, and finding self and family.

“The Great Godden” by Meg Rosoff

January 23, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

The latest novel by Meg Rosoff is “The Great Godden” (Candlewick 2021) about a family and friends summering together on England’s seaside. The teenaged narrator observes acutely—the loving parents; an older beautiful sister, Mattie, who is “in love with her own life”; a younger sister, Tam, who lives at the local horse stables; younger brother, Alex, who studies bats and other wildlife; and a theatrical cousin and her fiancé next door. To this summer mix comes the Godden boys, transplanted from Los Angeles and dropped off by their failing movie star mother.

Hugo is surly and the older Kit Godden seems to Mattie to be a golden god. Our narrator says, “What annoys me most is that it takes no effort to be born beautiful, no hard work, no mental agility, no strength of character. Just dumb luck. And it’s a universal currency, often mistaken for moral superiority.” He is describing both sister Mattie and Kit.

Kit Godden first bestows his attentions on Mattie who is head over heels in love with him. Eventually Kit turns his attention and sexual prowess on the narrator who is of undisclosed gender. This confuses our teenaged narrator.

Kit says, “‘You think I’m a player.’” Our narrator says, “‘I don’t know what you are,’ I said, which was true, ‘and I don’t care.’ Which was not.” The author’s subtlety and spot-on depiction of characters is admirable, to put it lightly.

The brothers, Hugo and Kit, detest each other. In fact, Hugo rarely speaks to anyone. But eventually the narrator and Hugo develop an understanding and through him we learn a bit more about brothers’ relationship. As we discover more about Kit, we begin to appreciate Hugo more. So does our narrator, who says, “Kit’s version of natural was a carefully constructed illusion. I was learning a lot this summer, most of it stuff I didn’t want to know.”

Our narrator confronts Kit about his intentions, almost begins crying in humiliation, then says, “Part of me knew he would take advantage of a genuine emotion to advance his game, and part of me just wanted him so badly that by the time we kissed I had no thought of asking him to stop.” Anyone who feels they have been manipulated in love or in any other realm of living will admire the character/author’s insights.

Kit is getting his talons into just about everyone on the island. And still the ending is a surprise. I highly recommend you read Meg Rosoff’s books. She is perhaps the most insightful, sophisticated young adult author around. And this book is short—small and just less than 200 pages.

“Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter” by Veronica Chambers with Jennifer Harlan

January 2, 2022 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

On July 13, 2013, Alica Garza—a young activist—was stunned when George Zimmerman was acquitted of the crime of murdering Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager. In her grief, Garza posted on FaceBook, “Black People. I love you. I love us. Our Lives Matter.” In the meantime, Opal Tometti and Patrisse Cullors—two more young Black activists—had joined voices with Garza. Cullors shared Garza’s post and added the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. The slogan caught on and the global protest movement, Black Lives Matter, was born.

Veronica Chambers with Jennifer Harlan has created a remarkable coffee table book, “Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter” (Versify/HMH 2021), which outlines not only the history of a movement, but the history of our nation. The book is packed with photos, passionate text, and is a guide on how to protest injustice.

About Garza, Tometti, and Cullors, author Chambers writes “They started out as three young girls who cared deeply about their communities and about doing their part to make those communities safer, more just, and more equitable for all.” Each woman began her activism as a pre-teen and each continues to focus her work on Black Lives Matter today.

A year after Zimmerman’s acquittal in Florida, Michael Brown was murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Many of us grieved deeply. All the while, awareness of the tragedy heightened. Protests bloomed nationwide under the banner, Black Lives Matter. Chambers writes, “Black Lives Matter picked up a baton that had been passed from generation to generation of Americans working, often through protest, for racial justice.” And “[a] generation of young activists emerged—finding friendship, strength, a common goal, and the first glimpse of how powerful they could be when they stood up, marched, and shared on social media what they saw and heard.”

Some individuals have joined BLM protests and become media sensation overnight. Young and old are drawn to the boots-on-the-ground experiences that protestors describe on Twitter—such as what it feels like to be tear-gassed. With the senseless murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, protests flourished across the country in June of 2020, while we were in pandemic lock down mode. We could focus on this recurring tragedy—the murder of Black people.

Art—specifically murals—as well as music—first spirituals, then blues, then protest songs—have been instrumental in drawing people together for the hard work of resistance rooted in hope. From pages 55-65 there is a valuable photographic timeline starting in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education and working to the present.

The grassroots BLM movement has been almost exclusively a peaceful movement—on the part of the protestors—where young participants are educated by experience. So many activists have braided their threads into the narrative of BLM—threads that began before our country was born. This book outlines the systemic racism on which our country is built.

Chambers offers examples of how to affect change, whether it’s frontline protesting, becoming street medics, suppliers, or observers. This is a must-have book if you care about justice and equality in our world.

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning books: Lift As You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue. Books forthcoming are about women’s suffrage, Martha Graham, and Ella Fitzgerald. talesforallages.com

“From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement” by Paula Yoo

December 12, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American man was preparing to marry in Detroit when he and his three buddies spontaneously visited the Fancy Pants strip club for his bachelor party on June 19, 1982. Detroit, at the time, was suffering steep unemployment in the auto industry and many workers blamed it on the burgeoning success of Japanese-made automobiles.

A fight ensued inside the club—Vincent and his Asian American friends on one side—two white auto workers, on the other side. No one could verify who threw the first punch although the club was crowded with both dancers and customers. The men took the fight outside. When the white man, Ronald Ebens took a baseball bat out of the trunk of his car, Vincent and friends fled down the street.

Vincent and one friend separated from their other two friends. They were sitting on the curb in front of McDonalds when Ebens and stepson Michael Nitz arrived in their car, got out and beat Vincent to death in the street with the baseball bat. They later testified that they were not pursuing Vincent, they just happened upon him, although another man testified that Ebens gave him $20 to help find Chin.

So begins “From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement” (Norton Young Readers 2021) by Paula Yoo. The book describes the police investigation, court cases, and the families of both the victim and perpetrators.

The police questioned the perpetrators and the victim’s friends, the McDonalds security guards, but never interviewed the various dancers at the club. The two white men pled guilty and were charged with manslaughter rather than first or second degree murder.

On March 16, 1983, at the sentencing hearing only the perpetrators and their lawyers were present. Vincent Chin’s attorneys was not notified of the hearing. Judge Kaufman sentenced each man to three years of probation and $3000 fine. Neither man spent a single night in jail for killing a man on the streets of Detroit in front of multiple witnesses.

Once tried there can be no retrial for the same crime. But a year after Vincent Chin was killed the Asian American community came together to charge Ebens and Nitz with violating Vincent Chin’s civil rights. Was this a hate crime?

In the new case a dancer testified she’d heard Ebens say, “It’s because of you little m*f*ers that we’re out of work.” The prosecutors were looking for the word “chinks” or “nips” or other racial slurs. Vincent was of Chinese descent, not Japanese, but all Asian Americans in the eighties were grouped together and called Orientals—which at the time was not considered a slur.

The Asian American community lost their case again, but this did mark the onset of the Asian American Movement and heightened awareness of their rights. If you do nothing else, read the timeline in the back of the book and marvel at the injustice perpetrated on Vincent Chin.

“Home is Not a Country” by Safia Elhillo

November 7, 2021 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Sudanese-American author Safia Elhillo’s magnificent novel-in-verse “Home is Not a Country” (Make Me a World 2021) is based on her own experience as an immigrant.

Before Nima is born, her father is shot and killed by Sudanese police. Nima’s pregnant mother manages to immigrate to America where Nima is born and grows up longing for the old country. Through Sudanese music and old photos, Nima learns about the colorful culture of her beautiful fun-loving parents. She longs for her heroic father and creates an alter ego for herself—Yasmeen—who she believes she would be if her parents lived happily in Sudan amongst their extended family.

Nima says: “I miss the country that I’ve never seen the cousins/ & aunts & grandparents i miss the help/ they could have offered the secrets they knew/ that i never learned”. Thank heavens for her best friend Haitham who arrived the same way, inside his pregnant mother, at the same time. Nima’s mother “makes us tea/ boiled in milk poured into mismatched mugs/ & hands us packs of captain majid cookies she gets/ from the bigala that Haitham & I call ethnic wal-mart/where we buy everything from bleeding legs of lamb/ to patterned pillow covers & casettes/ covered in a layer of dust”.

Mama Fatheya, Haitham’s grandmother says, “ours is a culture that worships yesterday over tomorrow/ but I think we are all lucky to have left yesterday/ behind.” Nima’s love of the old country prompts Haitham to call her “nostalgia monster.” She loves the old tunes and their Arabic lyrics. She dances with her mother at home, but closes herself off at school until she feels invisible. Haitham is friendly, joking, and popular with everyone. He is Nima’s anchor. Until one day, white boys scatter her books and Haitham doesn’t come to her defense. Nima and Haitham’s fight seems insurmountable.

Soon after, in an ethnic hate assault, Haitham is attacked, wounded, and admitted to the hospital in a deep coma. His life hangs on a thread. Nima is devastated and in her misery of not belonging, having accused her best friend of ugly behavior, and furious at her mother for bringing them to this horrible country, she has a mystical experience. By enters her parents’ sepia photo she finds herself with her alter-ego Yasmeen in Sudan viewing her parents’ young life. Is Yasmeen a jinn, which Mama Fatheya warns the teens of repeatedly? Or did Nima invent her? Or both?

In a prolonged episode of magical realism, Nima takes us through old Sudan, her parents’ happy courtship, as well as the horrific and life-threatening experience of Khaltu Hala—Haitham’s mother—who was pregnant and unmarried in Islamic Sudan. Can Nima banish Yasmeen? Should she? Unseen, Nima overhears conversations and discovers a devastating secret about her father.

She returns to her actual life in America with new appreciation and love for her mother and their present life together. Not only does the beautiful language, insights of living between two cultures, and innovative formatting open our eyes, but the plot makes the reader turn pages. This is an important book.