Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: September 5, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):
"You coming?"
"Is it possible for a hug to peel back skin of time, the toughened and raw bits, the irritated and irritating dry spots, the parts that bleed?'

Review:
I'm sitting here with that uncomfortable feeling that you get when you want to cry, but you don't or maybe can't? Like something is sitting on your chest that you are not sure how to get rid of without a good ugly cry to relieve the tension but it won't come. I think I need more time with this book. I think I need to sit with it for a moment and try to process. What I really need is someone to talk to about it, but I'm going to attempt a review anyway. The book is about the cycle of gun violence in the narrator's life. The story unfolds as an elevator sinks down to each floor. The vast majority of the book, about 250 of the 306 pages, takes place over 1 minute 7 seconds.

The cover of my copy is riddled with medals: Newbury Honor, Coretta Scott King, Michael Printz, and the Walter Dean Myers Awards... all incredibly well-deserved. It's a novel-in-verse and can be read in one sitting, though it took me three. This is the first of Jason Reynolds' books that I've read and I knew very little about it when I picked it up. After I finished I read an interview with Reynolds who was asked why he chose to write in verse and he responded, "I need my young brothers who are living in these environments, I need the kids who are not living in these environments to have no excuses not to read the book... to know you can finish this in 45 minutes means the world to me, so that we can get more young people reading it and thinking and having discussion about what this book is actually about."

I don't want to give you any more information than that. Just read it.

Rebound by Kwame Alexander

Rebound by Kwame Alexander
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: September 3, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"It was the summer when Now and Laters cost a nickel and The Fantastic Four, a buck. When I met Harriet Tubman and the Harlem Globetrotters. It was the hottest summer after the coldest winter ever, when a storm shattered my home into a million pieces and soaring above the sorrow and grief seemed impossible. It was the summer of 1988, when basketball gave me wings and I had to learn how to rebound on the court. And off."

Review:
This book is the prequel to The Crossover and if you're considering reading it first, don't. I really enjoyed The Crossover, but the depth Rebound gave to both books make me fall in love with the Bell family. Rebound is about the summer of 1988, when Chuck Bell, dad of Filthy & JB from Crossover, was 12 years old. I'm not sure I've ever experienced a book that made other books good. In its own right it was a great story, but for me the impact of this book came from it giving me a greater understanding of The Crossover... but it had to be in this order. I'm not certain they would have had the impact they had on me if I had read them in reverse. These two books might be my favorite that I've read all year. Such beautiful beautiful family development. Such incredible lessons learned by characters and myself while reading. These are books I will come back to again and again.

Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo

Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: September 2, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s): 
"They were Iqbal, too."
"I just beg of you, don't forget. Tell somebody our story. Tell everybody our story. So that the memory will not be lost."

Review:
This is a fictionalized story of a real hero, Iqbal Masih, a young boy who escaped the carpet factory in Pakistan that he was enslaved in. He joined the Labor Liberation Front and helped free hundreds of children from bonded labor. He was recognized globally when he received the Reebok Human Rights Award in Boston in 1994. This story was a beautiful telling of who Iqbal must have been: a brave, selfless boy who never lost hope despite his circumstance. He then used his newfound freedom to free others and then told the world about what was happening to children. It is a quick read and is definitely worth the few hours (or less) you dedicate to it. I sobbed through the end, which I was aware was coming, from knowing of Iqbal before reading the book. However, the way the author addresses it in the story is beautiful. Well done. More people should know his name.

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 19, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"This is just to say I'm sorry I kept beating and beating inside your shattered chest. Forgive me for keeping you alive so long. I knew it would kill me to let you go."

Review:
This was a devastating read. Many of Newman's poems used the personification of inanimate objects - the truck, a tree, stars, the wind, the fence, and most devastatingly, his heart - to make you feel that Matthew Shepard wasn't so alone for those 18 hours. Despite the verses, you remember again and again that he was alone. That when they found him the only part of Matthew not covered in blood were the tracks of tears down his cheeks that he cried and cried before he succumbed to his injuries. It will be 20 years this October since Matthew was brutally murdered. The progress made, so much in his memory, is great but we have so far to go. I highly suggest this quick read, though difficult, it will remind you how precious life is, how hate and fear do nothing but cause death and destruction, and that there was a 21-year-old kid from Wyoming who deserves to be remembered.

Dear World: A Syrian Girl's Story of War and Plea for Peace by Bana Alabed

Dear World: A Syrian Girl's Story of War and Plea for Peace by Bana Alabed
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 17, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"There are no children in Syria. You all were forced to become adults - to understand killing, to experience fear and starvation and pain in a way that all children should be shielded from. But that was a luxury we did not have. Something changed for me too when Yasmin died and when the siege overtook us in those brutal months after. Along with being terrified and heartbroken, I became angry - angry that we had to endure this while the world did nothing. Angry that I was helpless to protect my children. Angry that there is a world where bombing and killing children is tolerated. Angry that I taught you to be generous and fair and kind and then offered you a world that was anything but. As things became more desperate so too did your questions: Do people know this is happening to us? Does anyone care? Why do they keep bombing us? Why won't they stop? Why can't we have peace? I was angry most of all that I didn't have answers to those questions. And that you, a seven-year-old girl, had to ask them."

Review:
This is an incredibly important read about the true life experience of a girl who survived the war in Syria. I had not heard about Bana while she was tweeting about the siege and I didn't learn of her until she was safe. At the Oscars in 2018, Andra Day and Common sang Stand Up for Something. In the background spotlights came on to show 10 people. I could recognize 5 of them as my heroes, but there was a little girl that I did not know. I looked her up and it was Bana al-Abed, who tweeted through the Syrian war and had just published a book about her experiences. I bought the book that night. It's taken me several months to pick it up. It's so easy to ignore injustice, like the book I ignored on my shelf for 5 months. That's why you need to read this book. It will shake you awake to the experience that you should know about and care about. I don't pretend to understand the Syrian war. I do understand that children should be safe; that turning refugees away is evil; that I do not fight hard enough for what I know to be right. So, in order to help make Bana's wishes come true, I will act. I will write to my legislators, I will inform my peers of what is going on, I will donate to causes that do the work that I cannot, and I will not ignore the injustices that I know are happening. Thank you Bana.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 12, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"Basketball Rule #5 When you stop playing your game you've already lost."

"Basketball Rule #8 Sometimes you have to lean back a little and fade away to get the best shot."

Review:
Books make me cry all the time because I am a giant baby. However, the ugly cry that this book produced was a new experience. I read it incredibly quickly and had difficulty putting it down to sleep last night. If all of Kwame Alexander's books are like this I will be reading them all. Phenomenal!

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 12, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?"

"In yet another commercial, Oprah somberly says, 'Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be.' This is a popular notion, the idea that the fat among us are carrying a thin woman inside. Each time I see this particular commercial, I think, I ate that thin woman and she was delicious but unsatisfying. And then I think about how fucked up it is to promote this idea that our truest selves are thin women hiding in our fat bodies like impostors, usurpers, illegitimates."

"Fat shaming is real, constant, and rather pointed. There are a shocking number of people who believe they can simply torment fat people into weight loss and disciplining their bodies or disappearing their bodies from the public sphere. They believe they are medical experts, listing a litany of health problems associated with fatness as personal affronts. These tormentors bind themselves in righteousness when they point out the obvious - that our bodies are unruly, defiant, fat. When people try to shame me for being fat, I feel rage. I get stubborn. I want to make myself fatter to spite the shamers..."

"I am stronger than I am broken."

"As a woman, as a fat woman, I am not supposed to take up space. And yet, as a feminist, I am encouraged to believe I can take up space. I live in a contradictory space where I should try to take up space but not too much of it, and not in the wrong way, where the wrong way is any way where my body is concerned."

Review:
This book was raw and honest in a way that I could never dream to be. Reading this book was a deeply personal experience for me and I'm not certain that I'm fully ready to review it yet. I do want to say thank you so much for writing this book Dr. Gay!

everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too by Jomny Sun

everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too by Jomny Sun
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 11, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"Hmm... Well I guess everybody tells me i am too small and too slow to make a diference in this world but i am makimg a diference in my own world and i hope that is enough"

"we will always be with u. we internalize traits we observe in others as a way to honor and remeber them. we are all living memorials"

Review:
Flipping adorable. Also incredibly deep. Also timely. Everything happens for a raisin.

Will come back to for inspiration again and again.

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay

** Trigger Warning: SA **

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: August 9, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"Their work gave me survival and writing. From them, I learned the blazing insight that rape was not an act between an individual, hidden in a dark room - that was what my rapist wanted me to think. Rape was and is a cultural and political act: it attempts to remove a person with agency, autonomy, and belonging from their community, to secrete them and separate them, to depoliticize their body by rendering it detachable, violable, nothing." - So Mayer

"There is an impossible paradox when you are victimized by sexual assault. You want to - you have t- convince yourself that it wasn't 'that bad' in order to have any hope of healing. If it really is as bad as you feel like it is, how will you ever get out from under it? How will you ever get 'better'? On the other hand, you need to convince others it was 'bad enough' to get the help and support you need to do that healing. To get out from under it. To get an appointment at the clinic. To get friends to come over with Styrofoam food containers when you can't feed yourself." - Stacey May Fowles

"When I raised this in counseling, she told me: 'The survivor who was raped at knifepoint feels guilty she has taken up space of a survivor who was raped at gunpoint. Everyone believes there is suffering worse than her own, that they should be strong enough to cope without me.'" - Stacey May Fowles

Review:
This book's message is revelatory, not in that sexual violence happens to so many of us; all women and many men know this. It's revelatory in the way that "He's Just Not That Into You" blew your mind by being so obvious and so hard to believe at the same time. Not That Bad, compiled by Roxane Gay, is a book of essays about sexual violence and most importantly the feeling that what was experienced was "not that bad." We all know someone who has gone through much worse than we have. I will repeat that: we ALL know someone who has had it worse (even that person you are thinking of thinks this). That's not even possible unless pain is relative and though it's probably self-preservation (trying desperately to gain any bit of our stolen power back) it's complete nonsense. It was that bad. IT IS THAT BAD. From the "little" stuff that makes us uncomfortable to the life-altering (-ruining?) stuff that kills off who we once were. It is bad. Period.

Someone asked recently in a travel group that I am in if the #metoo movement has impacted women's travel behaviors. "No!" was the response over and over again, not at all, because the #metoo movement didn't reveal anything that women didn't already know about how unsafe we are. It has empowered us to reveal our experiences, but the only people who have learned anything new are men. That's why they need to read this book. Women, you need to read this too, but not because you will learn about anything you didn't already know but because reading the common theme of it not being so bad laid down at your feet in the most obvious way that you might even feel a bit silly for never realizing it before... while you read each story you will compare them to your own and be horrified to realize that you find yourself thinking that what you went through, as little or big as it is, was that bad and you deserve to cope with it in whatever way helps you to survive it.

The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan

The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: July 29, 2018
Format: Audiobook
Favorite Quote(s):

"Now I know the secrets of the dark, sweet liquid in my cup. The smell washes over me again, and this time I gag on it. It's no longer the smell of a loving bedtime routine, but the smell of pain, and working for no pay, and not being able to go home."

Review:
Read this book. It will not ruin chocolate for you, but it will change how you buy it.

I knew about the origins of chocolate already, but the story of Amadou, Seydou, and Khadija have thoroughly shamed me out of my inaction. I have the privilege (so so so many privileges) of living in the next town from the Equal Exchange headquarters and that is where I will exclusively shop for the products they sell. Among so many other privileges that I have, I have the privilege of being able to vote with my money. I will keep their story in the forefront of my brain and make purchases that reflect the world that I want to live in to the best of my ability.

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: July 11, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"I can't understand why dark northern soldiers and light ones are separated into different brigades. The dead are all buried together in hasty mass graves, bones touching."

Review:
I'll be arriving in Havana, Cuba tomorrow and wanted to read something about Cuba before arriving. I, sadly, know very little about Cuban history and what I do know was told to me through American history books. In the historical note, Engle quotes William Randolph Hearst to one of his journalists covering the Third War for Independence (known in the US as the Spanish-American War): "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." I'm afraid too much of the history that I have learned is through this lens.

The Surrender Tree is a story written in verse from the perspective of 5 characters (all but one are based on real people). It details the actions of a healer during the three wars for Cuban independence from Spain. For so few words, the story of Rosa was powerful. I was brought to tears twice in the short 2 hours it took the read the book. I recommend this book, not only for the history lesson, but for Rosa and the lessons in humility, kindness, and selflessness she teaches readers.

Salt by Nayyirah Waheed

Salt by Nayyirah Waheed
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: June 22, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"listen to my poems. but do not look for me. look for you. - you"

"i bleed every month. but do not die. how am i not magic. - the lie"

"you see your face. you see a flaw. how. if you are the only one who has this face. - the beauty construct"

"you not wanting me. was the beginning of me wanting myself. thank you. - the hurt"

Review:
What else to say, but to quote this book. Wow.

"If I write what you may feel but cannot say, it does not make me a poet. It makes me a bridge. And I am humbled and I am grateful to assist your heart in speaking."

"Some people when they hear your story. Contract. Others upon hearing your story. Expand. And this is how you know."

Thank you Ms. Waheed for being a bridge and helping me expand.

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: June 25, 2018
Format: Audiobook
Favorite Quote(s):

"My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs."

"'You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them,' she says now. 'You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.'" 

Review:
I think I might need to sit with this for a bit longer to write a worthy review. For now, I'm questioning so many things... like public education and my role in it. Are we providing students with the tools they need to for higher education or are we draining the curiosity out of them? 3/7ths of the Westovers have PhDs. I think there is something there to at least discuss. I'm also thinking about my interactions with my sister. We are very different people and have never experienced or interpreted a mutual event in our lives the same way. It's an incredibly lonely experience to be denied your own perspective, but it feels a bit like Tara has validated me on her journey to validate herself.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: April 20, 2018
Format: Book
Favorite Quote(s):

"I only know that learning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. And isn't that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark."

"Burn it! Burn it. This is where the poems are,” I say, thumping a fist against my chest. “Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too?"

"And I think about all the things we could be if we were never told our bodies were not built for them."

Review:
Easy 5 stars. I've read ancient and modern books written in verse before, but I think all of them have been epic (like the whole book is one long poem). But not here. Acevedo writes a series of individual poems that all come together into one beautiful story. This was epic in a different way. Some of her poems are for tying the story together, but most are the beautiful kind with triple meanings and gorgeous metaphors and deep "wait-I-need-to-read-that-again" meaning. I was able to connect with it even though I'm not a teen or the child of immigrants or a poet. This is going in the "will reread over and over again" pile. Highly recommended.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: March 10, 2018
Format: Audiobook
Favorite Quote(s):

"Each one of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done."
"The opposite of poverty is not wealth, the opposite of poverty is justice."

Review:
Bryan Stevenson is a human rights hero and more people should know his name.
This book alternates between telling the true story of wrongfully convicted death row inmate Walter McMillian and discussing real-life death row and life imprisonment stories from Mr. Stevenson's years as an attorney at his organization the Equal Justice Initiative. The chapters that Mr. Stevenson wraps around Mr. McMillian's story include those focusing on children being tried and sentenced as adults (despite being as young as 10 years old), women being imprisoned for life for giving birth to still-born babies, and those with intellectual disabilities who were not capable of defending themselves at trial. He writes about his treatment as a black lawyer in the south, the treatment of people who have served their time by society upon release (even when they didn't actually commit a crime), and the trauma and violation inmates are exposed to while in prison (particularly children sent to adult prisons). Please consider reading this book and making a monthly donation to EJI.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Finished Reading: January 9, 2018
Format: Audiobook
Favorite Quote(s):

"The truth casts a shadow over the kitchen - people like us in situations like this become hashtags, but they rarely get justice."

Review:
Phenomenal! Should be assigned to all high school students and I'll recommend it at my high school. This is an important read that will broaden perspectives that sorely need to be broadened (white folks, I'm thinking of you). Starr is funny, relatable, and genuine. I'm especially a fan of her regular Harry Potter references. This is the first book of the 36 I'm going to read this year. I'm glad I chose such a powerful story to start with. I will reread for years.