Patricia Hruby Powell

Ibi Zoboi met Yusef Salaam in an African literature course at Hunter College taught by Dr. Marimba Ani in 1999. Yusef Salaam was one of the five Black teenaged boys who were wrongfully convicted of murder in Central Park a decade earlier—a story documented in Ken Burns’ The Central Park Five.

 

Yusef had “freed his mind” while serving a sentence for a crime he hadn’t committed, by writing poetry in prison. Since their first meeting, Haitian-American Ibi Zoboi had become the acclaimed author of American Street, Pride, and others. A few years ago, she asked Yusef to collaborate on a book. That book became the co-authored Punching the Air (Balzer & Bray 2020) the much-decorated best-selling novel-in-verse, about Amal, using some of the poetry Yusef had written while in prison along with the words of master poet, Zoboi.

 

The fictional character Amal, speaking of his court prosecutors, says, “Their words and what they thought/ to be their truth/ were like a scalpel/ shaping me into/ the monster/ they want me to be.”

 

Waiting for the court’s decision, Amal says, “The jury finds, she says/ As if this is a game of hide-and-seek/ and I’m curled up under some table/ my body balled up like a fist…”

 

Once convicted, he says, “There is nothing left to do now but think about God: my country’s Money/ my mother’s Allah/ My grandmother’s Jesus/ my father’s American Dream/ my uncle’s Foreign Cars/ my teacher’s College Education/ my lawyer’s Time.”

 

Once in prison, everything inside him is dying—his dreams, his life. His frustration is over-whelming. “Some of us put up more walls/ some of us look as if/ we will break down all the walls/ Most of us become the walls.” He is sinking into hell.

 

Then he finds poetry and drawing, which will be his salvation. “I paint words and voices, rhymes and rhythm/ and every whisper, every conversation beats a drum/ in my mind/ at full blast.” But the making of art doesn’t make everything okay. Maybe this reader’s outrage peaks when one of the white guards continually but secretly displays his tattoo to the Black inmates—a black baby with a rope around his neck.

 

Only gradually does the reader discovers of what Amal was accused. We live with Amal through his imprisonment where an invisible line divides the rich from the poor prisoners, the white from the Black—it’s subtle and treacherous.

 

Sometimes this beautifully written book is just too hard and I had to close the book. I realize that is due to my white privilege—a Black person cannot close the book on the potential and real ongoing threat to their life and freedom.

 

The theme of the book is contained in the lines, “my punches will land on a wall/ my punches will be paintbrushes.” If you care about the plight of America, I suggest you read this book then hand it to another reader.

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore.  She teaches community classes at Parkland.         talesforallages.com

In the city of Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan has the talent and drive to be a fútbol star, but her parents believe in the old social order where here is no place for a girl athlete. Camila lives a double life keeping her fútbol on the field with her teammates, who call her La Furia—the fury—and a secret from everyone else. “Furia” (Algonquin 2020) by Yamile Saied Méndez is a Reese Witherspoon Young Adult Book Club selection as well as the 2021 Pura Belpre YA Medalist—the Latinx literary award.

 

Camila’s ragtag but talented and passionate team qualifies for the South American tournament, but she cannot continue without the consent—and knowledge—of her parents. Her brother Pablo—less talented, less driven than she—is being groomed to be a soccer star by her father. Her brother’s friend Diego has soared to soccer fame, playing on the Italian team Juventus.

 

Diego visits home and seeks out Camila. They renew a childhood crush. Diego would like to rescue Camila—take her to Italy with him. Even he realize the star player she has become. Diego is every girl’s dream of a boyfriend and Camila loves Diego but she will not give up her dream for his. If her team plays at the South American tournament, a scout could see her and she might be offered a scholarship at a North American university.

 

The close bond between the girls on their team brings up the cultural taboo of girls hugging each other—even in a country that allows same-sex marriage. The issue of domestic abuse is also an issue in this story. Sexism looms huge. The story gives us a view of Argentine culture from many angles.

 

Camila’s mom married an aspiring but “failed” fútbol star and the marriage is a disaster. Mom, of course, worries about her daughter when rumors fly about her and Diego. Mom tells Camila, “Lies have short legs, guapa. Don’t forget, or you won’t run.” Great bit of wisdom, especially for those in the midst of teen culture, where gossip abounds.

 

Her parents think that Camila’s intelligence and ability to speak English will be what releases her from a world of poverty, but Camila is banking on fútbol stardom. However it is her English and compassion that get her a job teaching orphans at a parochial school where she becomes mentor to many, particularly one pre-teen girl. Somehow all these social issues work into one story.

 

Coach Alicia says to her team, “Daring to play in this tournament is a rebellion, chicas. Not too long ago, playing fútbol was forbidden to women by law.” It reminds me of the days before our own Title IX, when my big sister couldn’t play Little League even though she was a star player.

 

Globally we’ve come a long way, but we have so much further to go.

 

 

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore.  She teaches community classes at Parkland.         talesforallages.com

JoAnn Allen Boyce was one of twelve African American students who desegregated Clinton High School in eastern Tennessee in 1956. She is also the coauthor along with Debbie Levy of “This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality” (Bloomsbury 2019).

 

The landmark Supreme Court case, Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) ordered the desegregation of schools. Clinton was one of the earlier southern schools to test the case when twelve courageous teenagers decided they wanted the education that the until-then all white Clinton High School could provide. Plenty of white students threaten the Black students, but some are friendly. And JoAnn is immediately popular and even gets elected president of her class.

 

Black and white people seemed to have gotten along fine in Clinton, until white townspeople experience their teen children in school together. Teens in close proximity might like each other; the potential of mixed marriages or mixed “breeding” instills terror in the white population and the town’s true colors emerge. In JoAnn’s neighborhood one family used to borrow a cup of sugar and return with a cake in exchange. Not anymore.

 

Allen and Levy via a Face Book connection. They communicated by email and phone from southern California (Allen) to New York (Levy). Allen would tell Levy stories; Debbie would take copious notes and due to JoAnn’s articulate nature, sometimes those stories could be written almost verbatim at times. Heres a story: “Negroes are not banned from stores, but at the grocery store downtown, if a white person is in the bread aisle, we wait. We do not enter that aisle while the white person is contemplating backed goods… it applies to milk and scouring powder too…These are the rules. We follow them and they keep us safe. We don’t like them.”

 

JoAnn Allen’s “own voice” informed this book in a way that Levy, who is white, could not have done on her own, just as Levy as a professional, talented writer could bring out JoAnn’s story in a manner that benefited them both.

 

I learned a detail about going to segregated movies. You may buy popcorn, but you leave and enter the separate door that leads to the “buzzard’s roost.” There was much to know to “keep safe.” Another way to say, “stay in your place” with Jim Crow laws.

 

JoAnn played a pivotal role in the 1956 Clinton High school year, visiting Washington DC to describe their endangered lives in Clinton. Clinton H.S. desegregated before the “Little Rock Nine” teens integrated Central High School in 1957 and Ruby Bridges in New Orleans desegregated William Frantz Elementary in 1960. Why do we know so little about Clinton? Probably because there were no iconic photographs as there were in the other situations.

 

This is a riveting and important book.

 

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Lift As You Climb; Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue all signed and for sale at Jane Addams bookstore.  She teaches community classes at Parkland.         talesforallages.com

Kingston’s brother Khalid, an 18-year-old soccer star, inexplicably dies on the field. Twelve-year-old Kingston (King) James lives in rural Louisiana and thinks Khalid has returned to this world as a dragonfly. King searches for that one dragonfly—his brother—in the bayou in Kacen Callender’s “King and the Dragonflies” (Scholastic 2020), winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature as well as the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry.

Schoolmate Mikey Sanders, who is rumored to have killed a man, plants a T-shirt tied in a noose in King’s locker. King is black. Mikey is white and his grandfather is known to have been a KKK member. Mikey’s father is also the sheriff. But King had been good friends with Mikey’s younger brother, Sandy Sanders.

Shortly before Khalid died, he’d overheard Sandy telling King that he was gay. He also heard King tell Sandy that he might be gay—he didn’t know for sure. Khalid had told his little brother, King, not to hang with Sandy or people would think he was gay. Twelve-year-old King tells Sandy (also twelve) that he can’t be his friend any longer. No explanation.

Khalid had also told his little brother he shouldn’t help his mother with dinner. Men didn’t do that. But King liked to help his mom, who comes home from work every evening so tired. But King complies with his brother’s orders.

King loves his brother, misses his brother, and is carrying those confusing rules his brother made. He can’t talk to his parents about it. They wouldn’t understand any of it—except maybe the grief. His mother keeps a false smile on her face in hopes of cheering her family. King’s father—well who knows what his father is thinking? The family is falling apart with grief for Khalid.

And then what do you do when your friend comes to school bruised? Sandy says it’s nothing, but King is pretty sure his dad—the sheriff—is beating his son. And maybe it’s because he’s gay.

King has no one to talk to—not his brother and not Sandy. Then Sandy disappears.

The entire small town is searching for him. Everyone is scared for Sandy. The next day Sandy shows up in King’s back yard tent. King agrees to keep him hidden and feed him. Their relationship reignites and the two boys tell each other their secrets. King knows of an abandoned fisherman’s shack deep in the bayou close to where the dragonflies swarm. They build a paradise for themselves, in between King going to school and staying home under his parents’ watchful eyes. Sandy is pretty good at fending for himself, fishing and trapping animals to eat. King subsidizes that with cereal and snacks.

King must figure out what is the right thing to do. Callender’s beautiful writing perfectly conveys King’s innocent mind. This is a powerful and satisfying read.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Lift As You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker, Struttin’ With Some Barbecue: Lil Hardin Armstrong Becomes the First Lady of Jazz, Loving vs. Virginia, and Josephine. She teaches community classes in writing at Parkland College.

High school senior, Laura Dean, is dumping Freddie for the third time. And she’s doing it by text. I bet that’s pretty usual these days. Seems pretty rough. Freddie, the narrator says, “being dumped feels like food poisoning.” The experience is prolonged. And toxic.

“Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me” (First Second 2019) by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell is such a pretty graphic novel. The illustrations are made exclusively in black and white. And pink. It’s stunning—the emotions invoked by those illustrations.

The plot is simple. High school student, Freddie Riley, is in love with the most popular girl in school, Laura Dean. Laura drops Freddie, picks the relationship back up, drops her over and over. Freddie can’t seem to help herself. She keeps taking Laura back.

What’s different about this story is, the players are two girls. It’s not difficult for them—that part. They live in Berkeley, California, the capitol of radical acceptance. As you go through the book, you figure out gradually that Laura, the lover, is a girl. Hey, Laura looks kind of boyish. And cute. And maybe one of the points is: girls do exactly what adolescent boys do. They use girls. Yeah, girls use boys too. And other girls. But I think most teens—those in smaller towns and rural areas—would be amazed by the degree of acceptance of lesbian relationships.

Freddie’s best friend, Doodle, supports her over and over. But Freddie mistreats Doodle—choosing her unscrupulous girlfriend Laura instead of her constant friend Doodle. Is that an indication of low self-esteem? Who hasn’t been on the other side of this in middle or high school? Freddie feels bad about her behavior and eventually makes it right, realizing that Doodle offers true friendship. So healthy friendships ultimately prevail over the unhealthy ones.

By the way, Doodle, who is straight, is going through some very rough stuff, but Freddie, wrapped up in her own misery, is oblivious. I’d like to see Doodle’s story told.

Here’s something useful about breakups as told by the narrator. “The truth is, breakups are usually messy, the way people are messy, the way life is often messy. I’s okay for a breakup to feel like a disaster. It doesn’t feel okay, but I assure you it is okay. It’s also true that you can breakup with someone you still love. Because those two things are not distinct territories: love and not loving anymore.”

This is an easy and fun book to read and could help teens who are experiencing toxic relationships. Maybe it could push them to see the light. Do you settle for the love you can get? Or do you find the love that you deserve? These are good questions for adults as well.

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue among others.  She teaches community classes at Parkland.         talesforallages.com

https://talesforallages.com/3167-2/

In Betty Culley’s novel in verse, “Three Things I Know Are True” (HarperTeen 2020) teenage Liv will not give up on her older brother Jonah, who accidentally shot himself in the head with a gun belonging to his best friend’s father.

Now Jonah requires round-the-clock care to stay alive, at home, in their Maine mill town. Liv’s mother works a minimum wage job.

Last year when her father was alive, he’d lost his job when the mill closed. “He’d watch Clay’s father pull out of the driveway of Number 24 in his “Bugz Away” van and say, Now there’s a smart man—he’s his own boss, and as long as there’s bugs around, he’s got himself a job.” Now her mom is suing Clay’s family because his dad left a loaded gun in their attic. Liv isn’t supposed cross their street to Clay’s house, but she does. And she might be falling in love with Clay.

Clay has dropped out of high school and is working for his dad. Liv worries about Clay inhaling all that insecticide.

Liv senses her brother inside his wracked body, but their mother cannot. Liv understands that “Jonah has faces and sounds that mean different things. If you’re watching and listening, he will tell you what he wants, what he doesn’t want.” Mom, on the other hand, is retreating, working more hours: “I think the Schedule is Mom’s way of caring for Jonah without watching or listening.”

With the mill closed, the town depressed, townspeople are taking sides between Clay’s and Liv’s families. Liv messes up in school and is punished with service at the soup kitchen where she meets Hunter who is homeschooled. Hunter’s mom, a hippy who’s in touch with the earth and feelings tells Liv, “Trust your hands and they’ll lead you where you need to go.” Liv discovers she has good hands, hands that can massage Jonah such that he can stop thrashing, calm and fall sleep.

Thank heavens for the fabulous team of nurses who care for Jonah around the clock. Liv feels jealous that the nurses and Jonah have an intimate rapport that doesn’t involve her. She likens that jealousy to “the little animal inside me gets throw-something mad.” She says, “I know it’s wrong to feel this way about my brother, but the animal is hurt and won’t listen to reason.”

Liv’s friend Rainie is a compulsive shop-lifter—carrying that propensity inside people’s homes. Liv sees Rainie’s stealing as her wild little animal—her big flaw.

Author Betty Culley lives in a small river town in central Maine. She has worked as a pediatric home hospice nurse. She surely has the authority, voice, and wisdom to tell this insightful well-written story.

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of the award-winning Josephine; Loving vs Virginia; and Struttin’ With Some Barbecue and the new Lift As You Climb.  She teaches community classes in writing at Parkland College.         talesforallages.com