New Crayons: What's New On Our Shelves

Remember when you were a kid and getting new crayons was a big deal? Getting new books holds the same kind of magic for some of us big kids. Every week on Sunday, I post what's new in our box. I think crayons is a pretty cool metaphor for multicultural lit. Every week we receive a book at Color Online is a good week.

I'm excited about this week's donations, which represent an assortment received by the staff! Check these out:

A Beautiful Place to Die, by award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn, is a "stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper -- a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed."

The story is filled with passion, racial tension, power struggle, mystery. That's enough to pull me in. The book is available in the nearest bookstore in hardcover and paperback. :)

Getting to Happy, by acclaimed author Terry McMillan.

Do you remember Waiting to Exhale? And its blockbuster movie?

Getting to Happy is the 15 yrs later sequel. It's about being single when you are in your fifties, being a shopaholic, handling husband number 2 and dealing with life's unwanted surprises.

The book will be release in September.

Source: ARC from the publisher.

Platinum, by Aliyah S. King

Planning for her wedding, dealing with her future stepdaughter's mother, and ghost writing vixen Cleopatara Wright's memoir is not enough to keep journalist Alex Maxwell busy. The magazine Alex works for has assigned her to write an article about the glamorous lives of women who married multiplatinum selling hip hop artists. As Alex slowly breaks her way into their guarded personal lives, she fears she may have more in common with them than she'd like. What if this is a glimpse of what her life will be with future husband and rising hip hop star Birdie. Stuck between this new found sisterhood and her obligation to write the truth, Alex is forced to make several major decisions she might end up regretting.

The book will be out in July 2010.

Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson.

Diribani has come to the village well to get water for her family's scant meal of curry and rice. She never expected to meet a goddess there. Yet she is granted a remarkable gift: Flowers and precious jewels drop from her lips whenever she speaks.

The gift is a blessing and a curse...

The book is available in bookstores.

Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey.

"At her new boarding school in New Zealand, Ellie Spencer is like any ordinary teen: she hangs out with her best friend, Kevin, obsesses over her crush on a mysterious bad boy; and her biggest worry is her paper deadline. The something changes: in the foggy woods near the school, something ancient and deadly is lurking."

Guardian of the Dead takes us on journey in New Zealand, spiced with Maori mythology, romance, betrayal and epic battle. The book came out in April 7, 2010.

Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith.

"Miranda goes from high-school theater wannabe to glamorous royal fiend overnight (she is a vampire). Meanwhile, her reckless and adoring guardian angel, Zachary, demoted to human guise as the princess’s personal assistant, has his work cut out for him trying to save his girl’s soul and plan the Master’s fast-approaching Death Day gala. In alternating points of view, Miranda and Zachary navigate a cut-throat eternal aristocracy as they play out a dangerous and darkly hilarious love story for the ages."

Cynthia Leitich Smith is known for her extremely culturally diverse work. She is the only woman I know to have Black Indians featured in her book (Jingle Dancer), and Eternal, in addition to the thrill and humor, features an eclectic and well written cast. This is a NYT bestselling book, received from publisher Simon and Schuster.

Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith.

I'm exciting about it, because it is a story about Native Indian girl today, not from the past, and about her living her heritage.

"Jenna's heart beats to the brum, brum, brum, brum of the powwow drum as she daydreams about the clinking son of her grandma's jingle dancing."

Book received from publisher Morrow Junior Books, marking the celebration of the title's ten year anniversary.

Sweet Hereafter by award-winning author Angela Johnson.

This book is the last of the Heaven Trilogy. "Shoogy has left home, not sure why and not sure where to go,until she meets Curtis. Curtis is living in a cabin in the woods knowing where he does not want to be -- Iraq. He's been there and does not want to go back. Sweet, Hereafter is a short novel with a powerful statement about love, friendship, teenage angst, and the costs of war.”

Here is Wonderful review, courtesy of Black Eyed Susan and PoC Reading Challenge.

Source: Library

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Color Blindness by Michelle Alexander.

Michelle Alexander exposes the practice of Mass Incarceration of Black people both in the past and now, in regard to current legal policies.

Source: Library

Looking Like Me by Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers (Illustrator).

"This jumping, jazzy, joyful picture book by the award-winning team of Walter Dean and Christoper Myers celebrates every child, and every thing that child can be."

Source: Library

Love and Vertigo by Hsu-Ming Teo. "This beautiful and moving novel steps between Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia, evoking the life, traditions, and tastes of a forceful Chinese family as well as the hardship, cruelty, and pain. Written in a fresh, contemporary voice tinged with biting humor, this is a story about resilience and a story about migration, but in many ways it is a story about parents' expectations for their children."

Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful week. :)