Book Reviews

“The Davenports” by Krystal Marquis

December 10, 2023 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Inspired by the family of C.R. Patterson & Sons and their carriage company, Krystal Marquis brings her romance novel “The Davenports” (Dial Books 2023) to life in the world of the wealthy Black Chicago of 1910. Just as Charles Patterson was a formerly enslaved man who became immensely wealthy manufacturing carriages, so does the fictional patriarch of the Davenport family. The Davenport matriarch was born free.

The eldest, beautiful daughter, Olivia Davenport, is groomed to be a society lady and is quite capable of hosting a grand event. Marquis writes, “The only problem? It was difficult to find eligible gentlemen—born into the right family, educated, and set to inherit a large fortune—who were also Black.” But Olivia and her parents may have found the right man in the newly arrived dashing and kind British gentleman, Mr. Lawrence. Then she meets the annoying civil rights activist, Washington DeWight and her path doesn’t seem so certain.

Olivia’s younger sister, Helen, rather than pursuing love, would rather be working in the carriage factory which adjoins the house. Helen feels strongly that her father should move into manufacturing automobiles to keep with the times. Their brother, John Davenport, will one day take over the carriage business. He agrees with Helen, but he can’t bring himself to press his father, because there are other things on his mind. And the patriarch certainly won’t listen to his daughter, a mere woman.

Olivia’s best friend, Ruby Tremaine, doesn’t have the money to spend on hats, jewels, and beautiful dresses, as she once did, because her father is asking the family to tighten their financial belts so they might afford his campaign for mayor. The campaign for the first Black mayor of Chicago is an expensive venture. Lucky for the Tremaines, everyone has always assumed that wealthy John Davenport would marry Ruby. The Davenports throw the Tremaines lavish campaign banquets, organized by Olivia. But Ruby is having a hard time keeping John’s attention.

Amy-Rose, once the best friend of the Davenport girls, has become their maid. So we see the caste system within the Black community at work. Amy-Rose is a smart and ambitious young woman who plans to start a chain of Black beauty products, but where will she get the money? Being of the servant class she is more in need of improving her lot in life, and is therefore immediately drawn into Washington DeWight’s civil rights work. Olivia, uses her once-friend and present maid, Amy-Rose, to attend a rally, and what can Amy-Rose do about it?

Each young woman has her consciousness raised and has begun working for what she is passionate about. By the end of the book, each of them seems to be directed toward the man she loves, and each young man seems in love with the right girl—all very neat. There will be a sequel. Will this tidy pairing off see conflict? Or will the conflict exist solely in the women’s pursuit of their career goals?

Patricia Hruby Powell is the author of 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. Her forthcoming books are about women’s suffrage, Martha Graham, Ella Fitzgerald, as well as poems about waterfowl. talesforallages.com

“Forget Me Not” by Alyson Derrick

October 29, 2023 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

“Forget Me Not” (Simon & Schuster 2023) by Alyson Derrick was one of ten books longlisted for the National Book Award for Young Readers this year.

Recent high school graduates, Stevie and Nora are deeply in love in rural west Pennsylvania. The problem? They are two girls in an ultra-conservative town and their love must be kept a deep secret. Only they know. I do wonder if homophobia is still so prevalent, even in rural areas. In my travels as an author in rural Illinois, I have not found that to be true. Perhaps it is in western Pennsylvania or perhaps I’ve traveled to particularly enlightened small Illinois towns.

But in this contemporary story, the young women have made plans to flee to southern California where they can share a life, in love, openly.

But Stevie has a devastating fall, resulting in a coma, and when she wakes, she’s lost her memory of the last two years. Once Stevie starts the long road to recovery, she doesn’t understand why she and her mother had grown apart, why her father is working so much she never sees him, or why her best friends feel distant and treat her oddly. She has no recollection of the boy, Ryan, she was told she was crushing on.

Ryan is a nice boy, but Stevie wishes she felt some heat at the thought of kissing him. What’s wrong with her? She’s grown apart from those two girlfriends, one of whom has a racist boyfriend, which makes both old girlfriends behave in racist ways. Stevie and Ryan are the only Asian-looking kids in their town and therefore they’re targets for racism, which they’re expected to ignore or laugh at.

Stevie has forgotten Nora, which hurts Nora immeasurably. Stevie’s family is grateful to this “stranger” who somehow managed the herculean task of carrying unconscious Stevie from the bottom of a deep forested gully and to find help, which saved her life.

Nora has been made physically strong working her family’s cattle farm all her life. She repairs fences, hefts sacks of feed, and sells meat at the family store, but she’s trying to be vegan. Her mother is cruel and physically abusive to her daughter. There’s no father in sight. Nora was counting on leaving behind her unbearable life and moving to California with the love of her life, Stevie.

Nora hovers just outside her hospital room door, visiting Stevie whenever the parents take a break, hoping Stevie will, first, wake up, and then remember her. But Stevie’s memory is not jogged into remembering Nora.

Because this is a young adult (YA) book, you expect it to end, at least on a positive note. Without giving the course taken and spoil it for the reader, I’ll say this story shows the strength of love against any obstacle and all odds. What a great theme!

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. Her forthcoming books are about women’s suffrage, Martha Graham, Ella Fitzgerald, as well as poems about waterfowl. talesforallages.com

“For Lamb” by Lesa Cline-Ransome

October 25, 2023 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Lamb, a sweet naïve teenager, lives in Jackson, Mississippi in the late 1930s, in Lesa Cline-Ransome’s powerful book, “For Lamb” (Holiday House 2023). Simeon, Lamb’s impulsive, rebellious, and highly intelligent brother has been offered a scholarship to a northern black college. Marion, a single and outspoken seamstress, is a good mother to Lamb and Simeon and works hard to make a better life for her small family. We come to learn from subtle hints that Marion is a closet lesbian who has sent their father away. Now she throws raucous Saturday night parties at home. Adults come to drink, dance, and have a good time.

“For Lamb” is written in the points of view of those characters already mentioned as well as others. Each voice is distinctive in the expert hands of Cline-Ransome. With Uncle Chime, Marion’s hustling brother, we learn a bit of Marion’s ancestral history which fleshes out who each of them is by way of their siblings and parents. And we begin to see their personal stories, having lived their lives in a violently racist world. Lamb’s estranged father is a good man.

Segregation is the rule of the land and racism is central to this black family. Lamb may not be as brilliant as her brother, but she works hard and loves to read. She reluctantly stops doing her schoolwork in order to help her mother with sewing alterations when her boss, Mrs. Rowland, heaps work on Marion. Lamb says,

It’s not that Momma minds the work, she just minds Mrs. Rowland.

“Kind of colored who don’t know she colored,” Momma says.

Lamb knows her mother is speaking of Mrs. Rowland’s behavior, but it also means she is light colored with straight hair and could almost, but not quite, pass for white. However, it does afford Mrs. Rowland some advantages in dealing with the white community.

Lamb and Simeon are close and confide their secrets to each other. But that close sibling relationship is halted when Lamb is befriended by Marny, a white girl. Simeon believes in black pride and figures this is dangerous relationship. But Marny has given Lamb a book she loves and they are drawn together by reading.

They go to separate schools of course, but they meet in a field behind a barn and exchange books. At first Lamb is awkward, never having had a white friend, but she’s drawn to her new friend and her easy ways. As an adult reader, I’m nervous for the two girls. Marny’s father and big brother are clearly white supremacists. In time, Marny’s big brother forces Lamb into his truck. I’m sweating, I’m crying, I’m cursing. And naïve Lamb tells her big brother Simeon about the event, which sets off a terrible chain of events that will end in a lynching.

The violence happens off-page but we know it will happen and that it happened. The horrible event changes the lives of everyone involved and disrupts the extended family forever. It’s a difficult book to read but an important one. And the author’s note includes some powerful information.

“The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School” by Sonora Reyes

August 20, 2023 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

“The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School” (Balzer & Bray 2022) by Sonora Reyes is by turns hilarious, then poignant, and always authentic.

After being outed as gay by her best friend, Yamilet, transfers from public school to the mostly white Slayton Catholic High School, as one of only a few Mexican kids. She is going to keep her gay identity to herself, even from her younger brainy brother, Cesar, who is in the same year (at the same school) because he’d skipped a year way back. Yamilet is going to keep her gayness from her mother who would definitely throw her out of the house if she knew. Her dad has been deported back to Mexico, but they video chat regularly. She’s always been closest to him and certainly he’ll understand.

At her new school she is befriended by Bo, who is Asian, openly gay, and really cute, but Yami is certainly not going to make the same mistake twice. Yami’s main job at school is to keep her brilliant but hot-tempered brother from getting into fights.

The chapter headings align with Catholic commandments but are cutely irreverent, like “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Butt,” or “Honor Thy Liner and Thy Hoops.” Because Yami wears heavy makeup and loves her gold earrings which make her white contemporaries fault her for looking way too Latinx. The white kids are pretty catty.

Another chapter is “Make Unto Thee Non-Racist Friends,” which she does, thank heavens. Now she has a small but strong circle of friends. This, of course, helps. Cesar is doing well which is detailed in “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Brother’s Life.” Love that title. The next chapter shows that maybe Cesar’s life isn’t as good as all that. But it brings us to “Thou Shalt Procure a Pseudo Suitor,” which she does. Yami discovers her brother kissing another boy. Wow! Cesar is gay, but still Yami doesn’t come out to him. However, she does avert disaster within the family by claiming that Cesar’s boyfriend, Jamal, is her boyfriend. So now she must carry on with this falsehood to keep Cesar safe from both Mami and at school. Life is getting more complicated.

One difficult evening, Yami, while speaking to her dad on FaceTime comes out to him. He cuts off the call. Is there a technological issue? What’s happening? Was she wrong to trust him?

Mami and Cesar travel to Mexico at Christmas to visit Papi. Yami, who hasn’t spoken to her father since he cut her off, still hasn’t come out to Mami or Cesar. She stays with Bo, who she’s kind of crushing on. But Yami surely won’t come out to her. She’ll never self-sabotage again which caused such huge crisis and pain at her old school.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the subject matter doesn’t apply to you. Or that this book won’t be of interest to you. It’s a wonderful read. And if you do identify with the concept in any way, rush out and get this book. You won’t be disappointed. Afterall, the National Book Award committee longlisted it for the award.

“High Spirits” by Camille Gomera-Tavarez

June 25, 2023 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

“High Spirits” (Levine Querido 2022) by extraordinary debut author, Camille Gomera-Tavarez, is a collection of eleven interconnecting stories about the m Dominican diaspora. Four generations of the Beléns family are represented, some living in the tiny village of Hidalpa, some in San Juan and some in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in New York City.

Gabriel’s story opens the book and is perhaps my favorite of the collection, or maybe this new voice was at its most eye-opening to me. Gabriel has “carefully constructed” a persona to present to his family. “He’d pieced it together with the caring, gentle hands of the piñata sculptor…Each slice of wet newspaper a little bit of the truth, hardening into a fragile shell over time.” His parents had sent him from the island to “the land of burgers and pizza at age twenty” to go to college. The sight of cooked beans transports us from Washington Heights to his Dominican Republic childhood.

The hand drawn family tree shows that Cristobal is the patriarch and it’s his “colmado” or grocery store in the Dominican. His American granddaughter, Cristabel, spends summers in the village seeing it through American eyes. She realizes that the sodas in the DR are so much better because they are made with “real cane sugar from the fields.”

In “Skipping Stones,” contemporary American teen Ana summers every year in DR with her cousin Zahaira. They model the contrast of two cultures. Only in DR can the girls pick fresh limoncillos from a tree and eat them. But Zahaira cannot obtain a visa to leave the island. Ana sports tattoos and can travel the globe with her U.S. passport. On the beach when approached by a drunken macho creep Ana curses him, but Zahaira, knowing her culture, assuages him by giving him money to go buy a beer. American Ana declares her love for Dominican Zahaira who rebukes her cousin’s advances.

The final story, “High Spirits,” brings all the stories together when the matriarch sits around the holiday table and tells the story of her courtship with the patriarch. “What a fairy tale, that’s what her nieces at the Nochebuena table would say, marveling at the glazed, giddy look in her aged husband’s eyes they would mistake for romance.” The subtleties of the prose uncover deep mysteries of the human condition, as well as secrets of evolving cultures. The story and the book ends, with Gabriel’s wry statement showing his wisdom and sophistication and throws a wrench in the tale.

I’ve loved everything published by this new imprint Levine Querido. And these mostly realistic family stories with just a hint of magical realism by a remarkable writer should not be missed.

“Iveliz Explains it All” by Andrea Beatriz Arango

April 30, 2023 By Patricia Hruby Powell Leave a Comment

Iveliz recently moved from Puerto Rico to Baltimore in the debut novel-in-verse, “Iveliz Explains It All” (Random House 2022) by Andrea Beatriz Arango, which won a Newbery Honor this year. Considering that seventh grader Iveliz is troubled and can’t even explain to her psychiatrist how she’s feeling, the title is ironic.

Iveliz speaks freely about her mental health issues and the medications she must take, which upsets her grandmother, Mimi, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Iveliz’s father has died in an accident and Iveliz feels responsible. Iveliz’s single mother, Mami, is overwhelmed by caring for her preteen daughter and ageing mother.

The relationship between Iveliz and her bestie, Amir, is realistically erratic. As people of color, both are targets of racist bullies. But Iveliz is trying to make a new start in seventh grade, but she’s confused, so she tries to work things out by writing a journal—this book.

Arango depicts the antagonistic classmate, Jessica, perfectly when she overhears that Iveliz’s grandmother, Mimi, will be moving from Puerto Rico to join them in Baltimore. “…Jessica was all: Omg whaaaaaat?/ That’s so sad./ Is she coming here illegally/ or are you, like, getting her a visa?/ ’Cause, you know,/ we’re all about immigration, but,/ do it right.” So Iveliz loses control and slugs Jessica. Iveliz is punished but Jessica is not. We feel the deep injustice of this. And we know it happens all the time in real life.

Iveliz is frequently in trouble because she flies off the handle. Her meds are helping, but not totally. Life is difficult for this kid and young readers will feel deeply for her. There are Spanish phrases thrown in, which I love, being a life-long studier of Spanish. Those that I couldn’t translate must be Puerto Rican slang, but we know by context the general meaning.

Inspite of Mimi’s objection to the meds that Iveliz takes to ward of an even deeper depression, Mimi is a support to her granddaughter and Iveliz loves her. A small bonus is a view of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. “Blue tarps stretching farther than the eye can see—/ literally whole mountains speckled with blue roofs/ and roads broken in half like they were twigs.”

In searching for her voice, Iveliz discovers that she can’t do it alone and must learn to trust other people. She goes from dubbing her psychiatrist Dr. Turnip to respecting and trusting her. It turns out that Iveliz is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, but we don’t realize that till pretty far along in the story.

This is an important book about dealing with mental health issues, specifically seeing a young person learn to fight for herself in healthy ways when she lets others in. It’s a book that spans both middle grade and young adult readers, as well as adult readers.

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