Book Reviews

U.S. Congressman John Lewis from Georgia was having a meeting with his 2008 re-election committee, when staff member, Andrew Aydin, mentioned he was on his way to a comic book convention. When other committee members teased Aydin, Lewis remembered that in 1958, at 18, he’d read the comic “The Montgomery Story,” about Martin Luther King Jr. and his nonviolent movement. This had inspired John Lewis to nonviolent action. He used the comic as the model to organize his first sit-ins.

 

Not terribly long after that 2008 meeting, Aydin convinced Congressman Lewis to write the “March” trilogy. Book One tells of Lewis’s origins as a sharecropper’s son from Georgia and the lunch counter sit-ins of 1959 and 1960. (I reviewed it in January of 2014). Book Two covers the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders.

 

“March: Book Three” (Top Shelf Production 2016) by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, and illustrated by Nate Powell is the final volume of the graphic novel trilogy. And the National Book Award Winner for Young Readers of 2016. It spotlights the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL; Freedom Summer, the 1964 Democratic National Convention, as well as the Selma to Montgomery marches. Everyone should read this nonfiction trilogy of graphic novels.

 

As the president of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a board member of Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), young John Lewis was a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights Movement of the early sixties. He illuminates the tensions and factions within the movement. We’re introduced to Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, and of course Martin Luther King Jr. and many others. We see these historic figures as three dimensional, emotional beings in both the text and the wonderfully-wrought black and white wash drawings.

 

We see Fannie Lou Hamer, the woman from Mississippi, who co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, in her unsuccessful attempt to be seated as a black Mississippi delegate for the presidential election of 1964. To that purpose she is depicted in a televised appearance addressing the Democratic National Convention’s Credentials Committee, which presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson interrupts with his own press conference in order to distract viewers and voters from the rift in the party. The book is not altogether clear on that, but like any nonfiction book, the reader can look up information to clarify and find out more.

 

Getting books like this one into the hands of young adults might help keep us from backsliding into a darker more contentious history in the upcoming years. Let’s not allow history to repeat itself.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell’s young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases 1/31/17. You’re invited to the Book Lunch Party 2/16/17 at 5:00 pm at the Esquire. talesforallages.com

His name is Castle Crenshaw, but he calls himself Ghost. He’s been running ever since his drunk father came after him and his mother with a gun, aiming to kill, in the book, “Ghost” (Atheneum 2016), by Jason Reynolds. So now Ghost lives with his mom, his dad’s in jail, and Ghost is running from himself, getting into trouble at school until his crazy fast running takes him through the track field where Coach spots him.

 

Coach has a passion for helping troubled kids who have track talent. He was an Olympic Medalist, himself, until he screwed up by taking drugs. He doesn’t want this to happen to Lu, Patina, Sunny. Or Ghost. All these kids are troubled. All are terrific characters—both male and female—on this city team.

 

But can Ghost stay the game? He sure messes up a lot and Coach doesn’t tolerate that. Ghost has natural talent, but he needs training and Coach is the guy to train him. The team is aiming for a shot at the Junior Olympics. In order to get his “newbies” to bond, Coach takes them out for Chinese food. Before they can dig in, they must each tell a secret about themselves. I wish I could tell their secrets, but that would be a super-spoiler. But you know Ghost’s because it starts the story. And having told the others, he’s part of something. They’ve bonded. Ghost says, “Like I was there—really, really there—as me, but without as much scream inside.”

 

The characters are authentic. The story is authentic. This book really needs to be put in the hands of thousands of young readers. Whereas Ghost is a middle school student, older kids will enjoy this gritty, emotionally honest book. And it’s a fast read at only 180 pages. It’s already a best seller, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and just won the 2017 Charlotte Huck Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Reynolds is the man of the moment, an African American man writing from in his culture.

 

I had the honor of being a panelist alongside Jason at the NCTE Conference last month in Atlanta. He said something like, “It means the world to me to share stories about people and families and neighborhoods that not everyone knows, or even considers. My job is to try to peel away some of the layers and walls to expose the humanness and the connectivity in us all.”

 

And he’s doing that so well.

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Her young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases in January 2017. talesforallages.com

“Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey” (Farrar Straus Giroux 2015) by Özge Samanci is an inspiring memoir and a more-than-charming graphic novel. It follows and eventually answers the universal questions: What do I want? Who am I? What’s more, it reveals another culture—a middle eastern culture, a Muslim land—at a time when seeing and understanding others is more important than ever.

 

Özge, was born in the mid-70s in the Aegean coastal town of Izmir. When television arrives in the mid 80s there is one channel. Özge sees an underwater Jacques Cousteau special. She’s smitten. She decides she will become a scuba diver. Her father expects “better” from her. She tries. But there are obstacles. In Turkey the school system makes the attainment of education challenging, especially if you’re not wealthy. There are deep conflicts between secularism and fundamentalism—Darwin or Allah? You watch Özge grow up alongside her smarter, more talented big sister who eventually succeeds in becoming a computer scientist—a prestigious field (although she’s not passionate about it). Özge keeps searching, trying, growing, in spite of these hardships.

 

I love to read stories from outside my culture. You can’t help but compare it to your own. And if you have friends from that other culture, you get to understand and know them better. In this case, you understand why they might be so knowledgeable. In order to get anywhere in the Turkish education system you have to learn how to learn. You must pass tests to get to the next level. Test results also decide to which school you will advance and the quality of teaching you will experience. And you learn about Turkish government and politics. For instance, elementary students in Turkey in the 80s were taught that they should want to die for their former “President” Ataturk, who was actually a dictator (and who died back in 1938).

 

Özge’s father wants her to be an engineer. She tries, but all she is only advanced into the easier field of mathematics. Easier? you ask. (. . . well, I asked). Can Özge please her father? He’s not easily pleased. She hears his voice in her head. It’s so loud, she can’t hear her own voice. And there’s the noise of all those other voices telling her to be: an engineer, lawyer, doctor. Her friends ask her: What are you good at? What do you love? Nothing nothing nothing. Özge falls into a deep depression. What will she do? She tries acting. And fails.

 

Then her friends see her school notes where she’s doodled around the coffee drips, fingerprints, and wrinkles. Thank heavens. You should see them too. Samanci’s artwork is sweet, funny, and smart. So is her text.

 

Because this book is so inspiring, you know you have to give it as a gift!

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Her young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases in January 2017. talesforallages.com

Loving vs. Virginia is an informational book or a “documentary novel.” The story is told in verse in the voices of Mildred Jeter (African American and Indian) and Richard Loving (white). The couple grew up together, fell in love, married in Washington DC, came home to Virginia in 1958 and were arrested in bed. It’s hard to believe that less than 60 years ago interracial marriage was illegal in half of the United States.

 

Research included my watching Nancy Biurski’s documentary, The Loving Story, repeatedly. I viewed news clips, studied Hope Ryden’s 1960s film footage of the Lovings, read newspaper and magazine articles contemporary to the times. I read extensively about the convoluted court case that led to the U.S. Supreme Court. I searched for photos and quotes. But, perhaps the most fun, was interviewing the “players” of my story.

 

Sadly, both Richard and Mildred Loving are deceased—Mildred in 2008, and Richard only nine years after the U.S. Supreme decision of 1967 which ruled in their favor. But I did speak extensively to Mildred’s brothers Lewis Jeter and to Otha Jeter who still lives in the neighborhood in Caroline County where they all grew up together. Their neighborhood—or section—was remarkably integrated. Blacks, whites, and Indians worked other, partied together, and in some cases, fell in love. This took place in a state, so segregated that State Statistician Walter

Plecker instated the “Racial Integrity Act,” as a health bulletin (!) declaring that interracial marriage was illegal.

 

One of my favorite interviews was with Richard’s friend, Ray Green. He and five buddies stood around a pick up truck outside a rural convenience store with my husband and me and chatted about their friends, the Lovings. They told stories, laughed, and gave details that would be the foundation of scenes in my book.

Another great part of the research? Remembering how it felt to fall in love. I listened to music that I listened to in my 20s when I was falling in love regularly. My husband and I spoke about falling in love—reminding each other of our stories.

 

My husband, being a white southern man, had special insight into Richard. Studying Richard in film clips and reading his words from previous interviews was essential in recreating his character. As many note, he looked like the quintessential red-neck—one who would be bigoted. Clearly he was not, and I got to establish that, showing his love and stubbornness.

 

From the clips, I know Mildred was soft spoken, a gentle mother to their three children,

and altogether charming. The couple was clearly in love. They did not want to be the center of this important civil rights issue. They just wanted to live their quiet lives together—at home in Caroline County.

 

Please ask me any questions. I’d be happy to answer them; or make a new blog post about what might be interesting to be known. And please 1)leave a comment and 2)sign up for the posts if you want a free advance copy of Loving vs. Virginia. The second drawing will be just before Thanksgiving. The third, before Christmas.

Buffalo Bill, born in Iowa as William Frederick Cody in the mid-1800s was a showman who would create the perceptions that persist today as the American West. The Codys and their seven children moved west to lawless Kansas. Several children died. Will’s father, Isaac, was hunted by pro-slavery men who vowed to kill him because they mistakenly thought he was an abolitionist. Even before Isaac died, when Will was nine, he scouted the frontier to earn money to support his family.

 

Author Candace Fleming begins each chapter with an act from what would become Bill Cody’s Wild West show in “Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented the Wild West” (Neal Porter/Roaring Brook 2016). Employing hundreds of Indians, cowboys, with horses, deer, and buffalo, Will Cody (Buffalo Bill) toured the U.S. and Europe, performing immense outdoor programs for millions, including Queen Victoria. His troupe would pitch camp over multiple acres and the audience could visit the cabins and tipis to see how people of the American west lived. Indian women who accompanied their men could sell their beadwork and moccasins.

 

Bill claimed that each “act” came from his own life—a Pony Express Rider, Scalping Indians, Riding with Wild Bill Hickok. Were his stories truthful? Some were. Fleming gives us sidebars headed “Panning for the Truth,” explaining how she divided truth from fiction. For instance, when Cody claimed to ride with Bill Hickok out west, Hickok was living in Vermont. However, the account of Cody’s sister, Julia, is corroborated by historic documents, so hers is deemed accurate overall.

 

With all his braggadocio, it’s not always easy to like Buffalo Bill Cody. Scalping Indians? He probably did scalp one man—Yellow Hair. But Cody was also an admirer of Indians. When the U.S. Army asked him to bring in his friend Sitting Bull, who the U.S. Army saw as a threat, he agreed. Against logic, you want him to set Sitting Bull free. But it was too late. Another army official who had a personal grudge against the chief got there first and killed Sitting Bull in a blood bath. Buffalo Bill would have been the better liaison in this matter.

 

Being in favor of the Indian overall, I feel that Fleming gives Native Americans a fair shake. She describes how the U.S. government went back on its word repeatedly—tragically—all to destroy the Indian population and culture. And what about Bill? An argument contemporary to the time said he should have left the Indians on the reservation. Was he exploiting Native Americans? Fleming shows that Indians of many nations loved Buffalo Bill. He paid them 100 times more than they would have received on the reservation where they were starving. Those who were lucky enough to travel with the show lived their culture in small ways on the road and were not pressed to assimilate into white European culture.

 

This is too simple a description. I urge you to read the book.

 

 

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker. Her young adult documentary novel Loving vs. Virginia releases in January 2017. talesforallages.com