Color Me Brown Weekly Links

Color Me Brown is a weekly round-up of links that have to do with race and literature. They can range from discussion posts, rants, interviews with authors of color and book reviews.

The thoughts shared in these links may not be in exact agreement with the Color Online staff. BUT they do discuss issues we are devoted to discussing and fixing.

Bethany Hedgedus interviews author Sundee T. Frazier about her new book The Other Half of My Heart.

Today inside the Writer’s Studio we welcome an esteemed guest, Sundee T Frazier. When looking at her honors and awards one could swoon: Al Rocker’s Kids’ Book Club Selection, Oprah’s Book Club for Kids, and of course, the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award top the list. Yes, Sundee is esteemed, she is gifted, but she also is down to earth.

The Senate reviews The Dream Act, a bill concerning citizenship - The Washington Post

The Senate will consider Tuesday whether hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children should be placed on a path to citizenship.

Michele Norris talks about her new memior - The Grace of Silence at NPR

Last year I set out to write a book about America’s hidden conversation about race. However, I changed course after listening to the hidden conversation in my own family. I discovered that my parents withheld profound secrets because they didn’t want to gunk up the engine of upward mobility.

They wanted their children to soar, so they chose not to weigh down their pockets with personal tales of woe. That is why I decided to call my book — my accidental family memoir — The Grace of Silence. But I am hoping that it will encourage readers and listeners to break past the silence in their own families

VivirLatino shares a music video (also there's much more on the Dream Act here)

During this Latino Heritage Month, we are marketed to, studied, talked about and analyzed. During this month many of our homelands, ancestral and actual celebrate their independence days but also within these countries we struggle onward seeking true freedom.

The following video comes from us gracias a Rebel Diaz. Filmed on the streets of Santiago de Chile and produced Chilean team, Artefacto Visual, the video features Villa Grimaldi, which was a concentration camp site during the Pinochet dictatorship ushered in by the United States and where two of the Rebel Diaz crew members, RodStarz and G1′s, parents were tortured.

For me, this video is what this month and every other month of the year is about.

A review of Where the Streets had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah at School library journal

Needless to say, if a person writes a book about Palestinians for kids, be it a picture book or a novel, it’s going to be considered a contentious subject. It’s easy to avoid such subjects. Most middle grade does. Abdel-Fattah is to be commended for her guts then. Though her critics will try to find fault with her depictions of Israel, Abdel-Fattah’s restraint is remarkable

Author Sarah Okler reviews Shine Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger

The Qu'ran burning fiasco and all the protest over a Muslim temple near the WTC site got me thinking about these things a lot this year, and it gave me a nudge to pick up Neesha Meminger's 2009 debut, Shine Coconut Moon