Some of you may have noticed that Susan, the woman behind Color Online has been away. Around the beginning of the year, she asked a few bloggers, if we wanted to contribute to Color Online. So for the first time Color Online has a team of bloggers. The other day I was wondering how Susan managed to do it all, run Color Online and her personal blog, it's a lot to handle. I don't know when Susan is coming back, but before anything I wish and hope she is well. Trying to think of new post, I thought to myself what would Susan want? One thing I know she's is all about dialogue. So, I figured I'd ask a few questions to encourage a little.
What are you reading right now? What is your favorite genre? Who is the last female author of color you read?
The Clone Codes by Patricia C. Mckissack, Fredrick McKissack, and John McKissack
“I keep running, wishing I could escape my own skin.” p. 62
The Clone Codes gave me chills as soon as I started reading. There is nothing ordinary about it.
Leanna is a thirteen year-old girl whose life is turned upside down when her mother is arrested. She finds herself on the run, at the center of a scientific and political war and she makes unexpected friends along the way. Her travel companions include Benjamin Franklin, Justice John Marshall Harlan and Eleanor Roosevelt.
It is 2170, which means that, much to the delight of readers of all background, there is an array of cool words, an innovative water game, and mind-blowing technological features such as computerized glasses that allow you to stock your memories, virtually attend school and chat for hours with your best friend.
The authors, Newbery Honor winner Patricia C. McKissack, Frederick L. McKissack and their son John McKissack, possibly invented a new genre: historical science-fiction. As oxymoronic as it sounds, the story does invite the young reader to analyze past and contemporary issues such as human trafficking, while reflecting on the future implications of cloning and other forms of biotechnology.
The Clone Codes makes history and science fiction fun for the teen audience. Its topic is contemporary and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.
WiP or most recently published work: BLEEDING VIOLET (It released January 5, 2010 from Simon Pulse.)
How frequently do you update your site?
Whenever I feel like it/remember to/am bored.
Is your site designed for reader interaction?
People can comment, send me an email. On the Contact page I tell everyone if they really wanna know what I'm up to, to find me on Twitter or Facebook.
Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out
The F.A.Q. page. Please PLEASE before you email me, read it first so that I don't have to say, yet again, that there's no sequel to BLEEDING VIOLET. Think of my carpal tunnel syndrome and have pity!
100 words or less, how would you describe your work?
Weird, dark, sexy, unapologetic. You know how some people write books that are uplifting and family-friendly? I write the opposite of that. You have been warned, people. Mwahahaha!
100 words or less please share your thoughts on the following: POC in YA fantasy/sci fi
Ain't a whole lot, is there? Other than stuff by Nancy Farmer and Nnedi Okorafor. And me. I don't know why. But I loved dark, creepy stuff growing up, and I'm glad to be in a position to show POCs kicking monster butt and taking names! Instead of, you know, being the first ones to get killed. ;) Hanna's not biracial for a reason-she is who she is. However, her being Finnish came about because there are a lot of Finns where I live. It was just a detail I remembered and built on. :D
Anything else you want to share with CO readers?
I'm really glad to see the positive response and attention BLEEDING VIOLET is getting. Just in case anyone is thinking that a YA paranormal with a POC character (right smack on the front cover at that) doesn't sell as well as other books, I'm glad to stand as an example of how wrong those people are. ;)
Thank you so much for this interview Dia. I just read Bleeding Violet and it's unique and wholly amazing! Plus, the cover is gorgeous. Read Ah Yuan's review of Bleeding Violet. Thank you, Dia, for writing books where POC are kicking major butt and exploring new worlds and allowing readers to escape into a world so different from their own. Also, everyone should check out Dia's website. She's funny, sarcastic and she spotlights lots of movies and songs that fly under the radar. A very cool website, and she coined one of my FAVORITE quotes "The part of me that's cool doesn't manifest itself in any visible way; it's all internal. I wear my cool on the inside; that's why my hands are so cold."
Set in a luxury hotel, in a fictional Central American capital. The lives of several guests play out over a week's time. The central character is Suki Palacios, a Japanese Mexican American matador. She's in town for the first ever female bull fighting competition. Suki Palacios is a very memorable character. There is strength in her skill and beauty. She commands the attention of everyone.
The ongoing presidential election is an essential part of the story. This novel is filled with strong female protagonists, including ex guerrilla, Aura Estrada. Aura comes face to face with the colonel responsible for the death of her brother.
Garcia has crafted a beautiful, elegant and lyrical story. Only 205 pages, the author takes the less is more approach. I love novels where there's meaning and purpose behind each word and pause.
"Last night Suki visited the cathedral, off the colonial plaza. It was All Souls Day and the whisperings to the dead rose from the pews, circling in the naves until they hummed with a humid sorrow. Suki trusts in the enigmas of the unknown as she does her own eyesight, or the pumping muscles of her heart. The trick is balancing the measurable known against the vast chaos that defines everything else. In medical school, Suki's professors praised her for her lack of sentimentality but they underestimated her respect for the imperceptible." (from arc)
Cristina Garcia is a bestselling author and National Book Award Finalist. The Lady Matador's Hotel will be released in September. Garcia also as a collection of poetry that will be released in May called The Lesser Tragedy of Death. Don't be surprised if you see that reviewed here in the future.
I don’t really remember not being aware of the white privilege. I think I was five when I read my first book on Martin Luther King Jr., the same year I started public school kindergarten in the suburbs of Richmond, VA. Not to disparage Richmond, VA, because it’s a beautiful city, but in Richmond, people wave giant Confederate flags in the middle of the road. It’s kind of hard not to be aware, even in kindergarten, that as a middle-class white girl you are being treated differently than your black peers. To be fair, I should say treated by some, not all. To be fair, I should also say PoC peers, but I honestly don’t remember any “colors” besides black and white in my admittedly narrow experiences that year.
Two months into my first semester as a public school kindergartner, I transferred to private school. There was one black kid in my class, who I remember really rubbed me the wrong way. But I remember feeling guilty that he rubbed me the wrong way, because as a black person, wasn’t he entitled to some standard of better five-year-old behavior from me? Yeah, I know. I was a messed-up, anal-retentive five-year-old.
Now that I’m ten years older, and hopefully wiser, and have spent those years in a very different social position from my peers—after kindergarten, my mom started homeschooling me—I’ve realized that this was a somewhat counterproductive reaction. I spent the next four years that I lived in Virginia paralyzed with guilt, obsessed with studying the Civil War, the civil rights movement, and the seizure of lands from Native Americans by the U.S. government, and constantly worried that I would make some kind of racist or ignorant remark around my friends and neighbors. (Not many of whom were black, and none of whom were of Native American descent.)
I read novel after novel about the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, and the Trail of Tears. If a book had anything remotely PoC related in it, I devoured it. I was dead set on becoming the most racially open-minded kid my age. And in trying that hard, I became so politically correct that I’d feel terribly awkward in any social situation involving someone who was not white. I don’t remember being too freaked out at my bi-racial godmother’s wedding, where I was the flower girl—I think I was distracted by my pretty dress and the blister the shoes gave me—but I do remember looking back on the pictures and thinking, what did they think of me? Did I say something insensitive? Did I?
When my parents decided to move back to their roots in small-town Minnesota before their divorce, my obsession sort of died. I had emotional trauma to deal with, and besides, there aren’t that many people of color where I live. It became a moot point. Until very recently, when I suddenly realized that I live 30 miles away from a prominent Ojibwe Indian reservation, and a whole new kind of cultural history.
I visited the excellent Indian museum there, and started doing my own research. And even though the tone of the museum certainly wasn’t an accusing one, I could start to feel my old, buried guilt creeping back to me. I found myself hunching over while I walked around the museum with my friends in the homeschool group I was part of at the time, like I was being invited into something sacred that I didn’t deserve to be a part of. I just about melted into a puddle of mortification on the floor when my Minnesota history “teacher”—another homeschooling mom—decided to read the essay on the Ojibwe I’d written for her class to one of the employees of the museum, part-Ojibwe herself.
Then I realized: What am I achieving by feeling guilty? I haven’t enslaved anyone, or stolen someone’s land, or exploited their cultural heritage. So why do I feel so bad? I decided that, every time I started feeling guilty about being entitled to the white privilege, I’d do something to help stop it instead. That way, maybe, I wouldn’t feel so ashamed of my blond hair, green eyes, and pale skin every time I walked into a room with someone different than me. It’s been a tough decision to hold to. It is so much easier to feel guilty for the actions of your ancestors than to take an action that you and your descendants can be proud of.
But really, those actions are not so tough to take. They can be small. They can be as simple as reading a good book about someone different than you, giving it the same weight you give a book about a protagonist with a racial and cultural background you share, and then sharing your honest opinion with others. Spread the word about PoC lit, especially YA PoC lit, where colorful protagonists are notoriously difficult to find. Especially after finding Ari’s blog and those like it, it’s what I intend to do as often as I can! Demand accurate cover portrayals of the characters in your favorite novels, and make sure that publishers and bookstores understand that it’s just as profitable to sell books about PoC’s as it is to sell books about white people. Then, maybe, we’ll be a little bit closer to a world where no person of color has to face discrimination, and no white person has to feel guilty for being the beneficiary of that discrimination.
Thank you so much, Ari, for giving me the opportunity to guest post here! =)
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.
This week the CO received/checked out from the library the following books:
Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz
. . . there are many kinds of light.
The light of fires. The light of stars.
The light that reflects off rivers.
Light that penetrates through cracks.
Then there’s the type of light that reflects off the skin.
—Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics
This lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect the arrival of a new "lector" (who reads Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to the workers as they toil in the cigar factory) has on a Cuban-American family. Cruz celebrates the search for identity in a new land.
It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2003
Where the Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin
In the valley of Fruitless mountain, a young girl named Minli lives in a ramshackle hut with her parents. In the evenings, her father regales her with old folktales of the Jade Dragon and the Old Man on the Moon, who knows the answers to all of life's questions. Inspired by these stories, Minli sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man on the Moon to ask him how she can change her family's fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest for the ultimate answer.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
When it was first published in 1993, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven established Sherman Alexie as a stunning new talent of American letters. The basis for the award-winning movie Smoke Signals, it remains one of his most beloved and widely praised books. In this darkly comic collection, Alexie brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation. These twenty-two interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and, most poetically, modern Indians and the traditions of the past.
I just read Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian and loved it! Now I want to read everything by the author.
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
The year is 1985. Benji Cooper is one of the only black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs, playing too much Dungeons and Dragons, and trying to catch glimpses of nudity on late-night cable TV. After a tragic mishap on his first day of high school—when Benji reveals his deep enthusiasm for the horror movie magazine Fangoria—his social doom is sealed for the next four years.
But every summer, Benji escapes to the Hamptons, to Sag Harbor, where a small community of African American professionals have built a world of their own. Because their parents come out only on weekends, he and his friends are left to their own devices for three glorious months. And although he’s just as confused about this all-black refuge as he is about the white world he negotiates the rest of the year, he thinks that maybe this summer things will be different. If all goes according to plan, that is.
There will be trials and tribulations, of course. There will be complicated new handshakes to fumble through, and state-of-the-art profanity to master. He will be tested by contests big and small, by his misshapen haircut (which seems to have a will of its own), by the New Coke Tragedy of ’85, and by his secret Lite FM addiction. But maybe, with a little luck, things will turn out differently this summer.
Escaping the Tiger by Laura Manivong
When you're so skinny people call you Skeleton Boy, how do you find strength for the fight of your life?
Twelve-year-old Vonlai knows that soldiers who guard the Mekong River shoot at anything that moves, but in oppressive Communist Laos, there's nothing left for him, his spirited sister, Dalah, and his desperate parents. Their only hope is a refugee camp in Thailand—on the other side of the river.
When they reach the camp, their struggles are far from over. Na Pho is a forgotten place where life consists of squalid huts, stifling heat, and rationed food. Still, Vonlai tries to carry on as if everything is normal. He pays attention in school, a dusty barrack overcrowded with kids too hungry to learn. And, to forget his empty stomach, he plays soccer in a field full of rocks. But when someone inside the camp threatens his family, Vonlai calls on a forbidden skill to protect their future—a future he's sure is full of promise, if only they can make it out of Na Pho alive.
In her compelling debut, Laura Manivong has written an evocative story that is vividly real, strongly affecting, and, at its heart, about hope that resonates in even the darkest moments.
-All summaries from Amazon.com
Ruby Lu, Brave and True Written by: Lenore Look Illustrated by: Anne Wilsdorf Simon & Schuster 2004 For ages 6-10 / Grades 1-5
Ruby Lu, Brave and True is an astonishingly good early chapter book. The writing is clever and imaginative. Each chapter is a realistic and funny story about being a little girl.
Ruby Lu is in the second grade and she is a character readers will love. She can do magic tricks. She thinks everyone should wear reflective tape. She can't wait to get her driver's license and start using credit cards. And she loves her baby brother Oscar - most of the time. Readers go through Ruby's adventures with her: from going to Chinese school every Saturday and dealing with a mean girl, to learning how to drive (!!!) and welcoming relatives emigrating from China. Through it all readers will see that Ruby is smart, sweet, and fun. Readers will also see Ruby's weaknesses and her not so smart-sweet-and-fun moments. But they will still sympathize with Ruby and have a good time and laugh with her.
Ruby Lu, Brave and True is a precious, precious book!
Answer the question and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win. Winners choose their own book from our Prize Bucket.
It is the biography of a discreet female leader of the Civil Rights Movement, an exploration of seven decades of protestations and actions as a social worker, a mediator, a teacher... It is about the creation of Black Family Reunion celebrations, Wednesdays in Mississippi, the early work of inter-faith and inter-racial discussions and collaborations among women of all generations, and much more...
Friday is the last day to donate books during Guys Lit Wire's Operation Teen Book Drop. The goal is to get as many books as possible in the hands of Native American teens on the Navajo Nation and White Mountain Apache Reservation. It started earlier this month and already more than 700 books have been bought off of the group's wish lists. There are many books on the lists that are less than $10 and groups have no problem receiving used books. If you haven't already, please consider donating to this worthy cause.
A few days ago Tricia from The Miss Rumphius Effect interviewed author Charles R. Smith Jr. Smith wrote the wonderful MG novel, Chameleon and also illustrated he children's book, My People, based on the Langston Hughes poem.
Author Isabel Allende's newest novel is out and according to Kristen over at Books for Breaksfast, The Island under the Sea is "a fascinating look at history in both Haiti and New Orleans".
At Lost in Books, Rebecca has started a special blog series on diversity. She's been interviewing different people about their native culture. One of my favorite posts is with blogger Aarti from Booklust. Aarti talks about being Indian American and the stereotypes that people have about Indian culture.
At Raising Readers and Writers, Julie's posted information about the Columbus Young Author's Summer Writing Camp that's being hosted this summer for students in grades four through eleven. So if you know any budding young authors who are in or near the Columbus, Ohio area, this may be for them.
Balmaseda is a two time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and this is her first novel. It was one of my favorite mystery debuts of 2009
Dulce Maria (Mary) Guevara is a single mother and a very successful Miami real estate agent. Mary has worked hard to provide a nice home for her and son, Max. Mary's life is turned upside down when she is mistaken for a drug queen pin. One morning the FBI searches Mary's house and she's arrested in front of her son. After the charges are dropped, Mary realizes the only way to get her life back and not lose custody of her son is to catch the real criminal.
Sweet Mary was such a pleasure to read. I loved it. Mary is a wonderfully crafted character. Part of the beauty of this mystery is Mary comes across as a real person. She is an accidental sleuth, like Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan or Kyra Davis's Sophie Katz.
One of the many strengths of this story is the relationship between Mary and her best friend Gina Torres. Gina helps search for the real criminal. Balmaseda allows the reader to get a good taste of the city of Miami. Sweet Mary is a wonderful addition to the mystery genre.
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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.”
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."
I recently realized with the exception of genre fiction, like mystery or horror, or funny fiction from authors like David Sedaris or Christopher Moore, I don't read many White male authors. After I had this revelation, one of my first thoughts was what if Women of Color had more say in end of the year best of list, would White male authors be forgotten?
A lot of books come out in any given year, too many for anyone (even professional reviewers) to read. I've always assumed professionals reviewers typically read the books getting a lot of high praise first, next comes the books that they find interesting and could possibly be an undiscovered gem.
Women of color authors are at a real disadvantage with the second category. Maybe I am wrong but I simply don't see many White male reviewers seeking out novels by female authors of color if there isn't any buzz.
Publishers Weekly's Top Ten of 2009, did not include any female authors. Here is PW's 100 Best Books of 2009 I only see two women of color authors on the list. The LA Times favorite fiction of 2009. This time there one woman of color author. NPR's Best Books of 2009. Someone please correct me if I am wrong but I only see four authors of color. NPR's best of list are complied by different people and broken up into categories. I find it ironic that no women of color authors made the Under -The Radar List
USA Today list of the 100 bestselling books of 2009. There is only one author of color on that list. Sapphire, the author of Push. Some may think I am stretching it a bit by including that last list but I don't. Readers seek out and buy books they hear about be it book reviews, awards and end of the year list. To have only one female author of color on that USA Today list is pretty sad. Though looking at this best of list, it doesn't come as a surprise.
When I thought about how many White authors I don't read I could see how this exclusion of Women of color authors could easily happen. Though that doesn't make it right and is not an excuse. If a person is reading for pleasure, its fine to stick to what you know and love. However, when what a person reads influences what others will and will not read, they should seek out more stories.
Looking at those best of list, made me sad and angry. I didn't seek out the lists to prove my point. I simply looked for any I could find. If anyone knows of any mainstream best of list that features several female authors of color please let us know about it. Also looking at those list made me realize, though I may not read a lot of White male authors, I am not that bad. A few White male authors I've read and loved. Richard Price, Dennis Lehane, Wally Lamb, George Pelecanos, Joshua Ferris, Lee Child and David Benioff
If Women of color had more say in what was considered the best fiction, I would like to think we would do a better job of not overlooking the contributions of White male authors. Since we know how it feels to have stories about us, dismissed or unrecognized.
Page From a Tennessee Journal is the first novel from former Pediatric Occupational Therapist, Francine Thomas Howard. This is one of the first of previously self-published books being relaunched by the AmazonEncore program. I think it's a very fitting choice. Howard brings us into the lives of the white farm owning couple of Alexander and Eula McNaughton and the Black sharecropping family of John and Annalaura Welles. Set in rural east Tennessee in 1913, the story of these four people as individuals and as couples unfolds.
Alexander and John are both in love with the same woman yet neither knows how to appropriately show their affection without leaving her hurt emotionally and physically. And for one the love is forbidden which is the major source of conflict in this novel. The author's depiction of the lives of sharecroppers would make a good argument of why this practice was as detrimental to Blacks as, if not actually worse than, slavery. The squalid living conditions and unfair arrangements for payments and advances against labor were deplorable. Another social issue tackled is the marginalization of women. The status of the rural Southern woman was very bleak for both Blacks and whites. They both dealt with philandering husbands which was acceptable amongst their social class and being silenced. This was not news to me however, Howard's portrayal was like re-opening a wound and I was angered so much when this matter was brought up. John Welles angered me most with his self-righteous attitude even after he left his wife and children with nothing to seek his fortune. These women had to endure everything thrown at them while keeping up the dutiful, loyal wife routine without so much as an eye roll. Eula does get her opportunity to use her voice in her journal even if it is only for herself. Annalaura even gets a bit of poetic justice in the end when she gets to make a life changing decision on her terms.
Reading this in two sittings, Howard's writing was well paced and never really hit any lulls. She has written great nuanced characters and the story felt like she was comfortable in the narrative as it's not forced. And I always applaud those who bravely take on whorehouses and Southern dialect without it all coming off as trite. Though it's hard for me to digest tales involving the disparaging treatment of women, it was worth it and deserves every accolade it has coming. Yes, I'm being prophetic. I do hope to see this also become part of the scholarly canon of fiction on women's studies. I highly recommend this entertaining and poignant debut novel.
WiP or most recently published work: Daughters of the Stone Writing credits: 1993 “Passing On” Shooting Star Review 1997 “Mapping” The Writer’s Voice: Magazine of the Emerging Writers 2003 “Papichulo” Lost and Found: Anthology of Teachers’ Writing 2005 “Mapping” Acts of Emancipation: Anthology of Teachers’ Writing “Cuban Portraits” Rosebud “The Healing” Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul “The Clinic” Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul 2006 “Hair Inspection” Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces 2007 “Cuban Portraits” Narrative Magazine (on-line version) 2007 “Cuban Portraits” Narrative Magazine (soft cover version) 2008 “A Writer’s Journey” and “Hair Inspection” Wordsetc (South African literary journal) 2009 Daughters of the Stone. St. Martin’s Press, NYC (novel) 2010 “Maggie” Women’s Work (upcoming) How frequently do you update your site? I check on reader responses every day and update my events calendar once a month.
Is your site designed for reader interaction? Yes, there’s a section for reader input. I’m looking forward to reading family tales or stories that have been passed down. But no one has left me stories yet.
Post of note, something in particular you want readers to check out: Check out the “Share Your Story” page on my web site and contribute your story. Also, if a reader likes my book, he/she should review it on Amazon or Barnes & Nobles.com or one of the social networks. That’s one way of letting publishers know that there is an audience out there for our work.
Top 5 reads you’re looking forward to reading in 2010? (Sorry, can’t limit myself to just five) Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See The Book of Night Women by Marlon James The Known World by Edward P. Jones The Angel’s Game by Carlos Zafon
100 words or less how would you describe your work? I write first and foremost, because the stories I was given to read in school didn’t reflect my reality at home. They did not tell of the lines in my grandmother’s face or my father’s broken hands or the smell on my grandfather’s skin when he came home from the fields. Nowhere did I see the many hues of my cousins’ skins or hear the music of the Caribbean or the sound of my mother’s voice when she called me mamita or nena. I write because I want other little girls like me to be able to find themselves in the stories they read or watch on television.
100 words on less please share your thoughts on the writing life: From the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a writer. But writing wasn’t a reliable way to earn a living. While I never gave up on my dream, I realized that I needed my day-to-day experiences to lend truth and life to my fiction. I was the best librarian and teacher I could be during the week and took evening and weekend workshop, honing my skills for the day when writing would be my life. When I retired from teaching, I was ready.
Women of color writers: I have met so many fine writers of color who have wonderful work, which isn’t being promoted by the publishing industry. The assumption seems to be that our folks don’t read. How long will it take them to realize that if you give folks what they can relate to, they will spend the money? All you have to do is look at the success of Push. Not only was the book a success, the movie is a critical and financial smash hit.
Writing and activism: For me, fiction is a powerful form of activism. In a novel, it’s not about statistics or dry historical recitation. Fiction puts a human face on events. Its purpose is to touch the reader on an emotional as well as an intellectual level. Statistics don’t move me. I need to see the effect of those statistics on a human being.
Dahlma, thank you for allowing us to promote and support your work.
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.
We had another great week of donations. Check these out:
6 pack from Lee & Low: The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby by Crystal Hubbard,Illustrated by Robert McGuire Born into an African American sharecropping family in 1880s Kentucky, Jimmy Winkfield grew up loving horses. The large, powerful animals inspired little Jimmy to think big. Looking beyond his family’s farm, he longed for a life riding on action-packed racetracks around the world.
Night Golf by William Miller, Illustrated by Cedric Lucas James loves sports, but he's too short for basketball and too small for football. However, he finds an old golf club one day, and quickly realizes that golf comes naturally to him.
Ray Charles by Sharon Bell Mathis,Illustrated by George Ford As a young boy he fell in love with music, and as a man, the world fell in love with his music. Ray Charles and his soulful, passionate rhythm and melodies have been embraced around the globe for decades.
Love to Langston by Tony Medina, Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie Fourteen original poems offer young readers an exciting glimpse into the life of Langston Hughes, one of America's most beloved poets. Each of Medina's engaging poems explores an important theme in Hughes' life — his lonely childhood, his love of language and travel, his dream of writing poetry.
Howard Thurman's Great Hope by Kai Jackson Issa, Illustrated by Arthur L. Dawson Born in segregated Daytona, Florida, in 1899, Howard Thurman grew up dreaming of a better life—a life where his mother and grandmother would not have to cook and clean for other people; a life where he could become a college man, honoring his late father’s wishes and his own dreams.
Junettenth Jamboree by Carole Boston Weatherford Illustrated by Yvonne Buchanan As she helps prepare red velvet cake, fried chicken, and piles of other dishes, she wonders what makes June 19th so important. It isn't until Cassie and her family arrive downtown that she discovers what the commotion is about.
What did you get this week in the mail, at the bookstore or on trade? Post a link to your crayon post and your name is entered in a monthly random drawing for a free book.
Summary:In the city of Enugu, Nigeria, fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother, Jaja, lead a privileged life. Their Papa is a wealthy and respected businessman; they live in a beautiful house; and they attend an exclusive missionary school. But, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, their home life is anything but harmonious. Her father, a fanatically religious man, has impossible expectations of his children and wife, and severely punishes them if they're less than perfect. Home is silent and suffocating.
When Kambili's loving and outspoken Aunty Ifeoma persuades her brother that the children should visit her in Nsukka, Kambili and Jaja take their first trip away from home. Once inside their Aunty Ifeoma's flat, they discover a whole new world. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins' laughter rings throughout the house. Jaja learns to garden and work with his hands, and Kambili secretly falls in love with a young charismatic priest.
When a military coup threatens to destroy the country and Kambili and Jaja return home changed by their newfound freedom, tension within the family escalates. And Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together after her mother commits a desperate act.~ from GoodReads.Com
The Review: I was been told to read this book years ago by someone with a reading taste I trust, but for some strange reason I kept on putting it off. Then a couple months ago I was reminded to read this book by the author’s brilliant speech “The Danger of a Single Story” (watch it, especially if you have even the tiniest interest in storytelling) and I was like, how did I not get around to reading her works yet? So I finally checked the book out of the library earlier this month and damn, what a haunting read. Beautiful, intense, and I was a fool for not having read this sooner.
This is a story revolving around the domestic abuse of the narrator’s father. And yet, this is not a story of melodrama angst and heartbreak. Yes, there is a lot of anguish and pain and sadness in this novel, but underneath these painful moments is a spark of joy, and laughter. The premise of the story is not that of a victim enduring abuse, but a girl who gets a chance to step away momentarily from a world in which her and the whole family is subjugated to the mood swings of the father, as Kambili forges a world for herself in which she can start laughing without having her father’s opinions pervading and influencing her every move. Her transformation from the fearful daughter desperate to please her father to a girl who can smile and laugh on her own whim was an extraordinary journey that I’m so happy to have had to pleasure of reading. Purple Hibiscus is the kind of novel that the reader won’t forget soon after reading.
The novel sticks really close to Kambili’s head, so I’m thinking that the potential reader’s enjoyment of the novel is very dependent on much you like or sympathize with Kambili. I personally thought Kambili was a lovely protagonist, and loved being inside her head. I love seeing how timid and quiet she was at first, and then how she grew from thereon out. We’re so in her head and her personal problems and concerns that the problems with the riots and censoring in contemporary Nigeria take a backseat, but I don’t think this is a detriment to the novel at all. Reading from Kambili’s perspective was like having a glimpse at her innermost thoughts, a peek at her private diary, and there’s something so honest about the narration that I just completely fell in love with. This novel does more than just capture an amazingly authentic teenage voice – it moves you with its sincerity and honesty.
I really enjoyed the character interactions in this novel as well. Kambili and Amaka’s rocky cousin relationship was interesting to watch, as they start to step away from their misunderstandings of one another. And the rest of the family interactions were great too. I really liked how family was so central to this novel. It was really interesting to see the contrast between Kambili’s family and her aunt’s family, from the obvious differences (abusive relationship vs. loving relationship etc) to much subtler ways, like how Kambili’s family household is very quiet, versus her aunt’s boisterous laughter that rings around her own household. There was also some very nice class differences explored in this novel, which is nice to see. But my absolutely favourite aspect of this novel was the achingly sweet budding romance between Kambili and Amandi, a priest. Their growing affection for each other felt so natural, and the author captures the emotions of teenage first love so well. If I must compare her portrayals of first love with another YA author, it’d be Jenny Han, but more The Summer I Turned Pretty-esque as oppose to Shug-like. We are convinced by their portrayal of first love because it’s very honest. Also, Adichie writes like a dream, and the way she selects her words to describe that feeling of first love is so perfect and beautifully original.
The afternoon played across my mind as I got out of the car in front of the flat. I had smiled, ran, laughed. My chest was filled with something like bath foam. Light. The lightness was so sweet i tasted it on my tongue, the sweetness of an overripe bright yellow cashew fruit. Pg. 180
Doesn’t that just make you want to pick up the book ASAP?! Even if my not-very-elegantly-phrased review is not convincing you, read it for the beautiful, lush prose, at the very least.
The Verdict: One of the most beautiful pieces of fictive narratives I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Painful, sweet, and a spark of hopeful joy – the reader will sink into Kambili’s mindset right away as she forges a life for herself. I’ve been told that as this was Adichie’s first novel, her later works are much better. Which makes me really excited because as her writing is already so amazing here, I can’t wait to see how she tops it in Half a Yellow Sun
Rating: 5/5 Enjoyment: 100%!
Title and Cover Discussion: One of the things I didn’t get to talk about in the review was the purple hibiscus motif, which was subtly woven into the story to lead us to some of the novel’s most memorable scenes. Anyhow, the title is brilliant and if you’re curious about how Adichie uses the purple hibiscus as a symbol, I say read it to find out. 8D As for the cover... I don’t know, I’m really sick of cut-off female faces, and on top of that, the black-and-white photograph doesn’t do it any favours. Another cover has the hibiscus in actual purple, but I don’t really want to rate a cover if I haven’t seen it with my own two eyes. (I find that seeing covers online and in real life is two very different experiences.) Soooooo I’m going to cheat on the cover ratings and drop them. I just don’t feel fair with faulting a cover when there’s another one out there that may be better. It just brings too much attention to the old cover, ya know? Feel free to share your thoughts on the cover, or anything you want.
Recap on how to win books at Color Online Participate in CORA Diversity Roll Call. Each month, we will draw a name randomly to win a book from our Prize Bucket. We run a new assignment roughly every two weeks, here or at Worducopia. Join us. It's fun and the exercise introduces participants to new reads and different perspectives on our reading habits.
Participate in Women Unbound. I'd love to see more women of color reviews. Join us. Once a month I draw a name.
The POC Challenge. Color Online is a sponsor. Post a link to your review of a POC title and you're entered.
Color Online Quiz. Every month we try to post four quizzes. Random monthly drawing.
Color Me Brown- Read and blog brown. I'm always looking and then sharing links to your reviews. Completely random. Do what you do and you might win a book.
Every week I post a query for Sunday Salon and we share what new books we have in our New Crayons post. Comment to Sunday Salon or write a New Crayons post on your blog and you'll be entered in a monthly drawing.
We are committed to connecting readers with great literature. If you want to donate books to schools or Color Online, check our contact page. When we get requests or I hear about a school/program looking for books, I send them.
If you don't have books, send me $1 stamps. We don't have a fund. We have you and me, a sister with more passion than cents.
Unclaimed prizes Holiday winners- Cassy, Mardel, Gavin, Laura and Catherine Quiz- Elizabeth at LJ (Feb) Roll Call- Puss Boots (Feb) Color Me Brown review- Charlotte Women Unbound- Melissa (Jan) Angela (Feb)
Winners, please contact me. I need your book choices and snail addresses.
Foxy: My Life in Three Acts by Pam Grier with Ardrea Cagan Thankfully the book doesn’t read like a kiss-and-tell-all, though, that would have been easy. Grier gives candid accounts of her relationships with Abdul-Jabbar and Freddie Prinze Sr. However it was details of her relationship with Richard Pryor which left me gasping in disbelief. Sorry, you’ll have to read it yourselves to find out that one. See full review at Sable VeritySocial Commentary. Thanks to Anna at Hatchet Books, we have 5 copies to give away. Deadline is April 16th. Earn entries:
+1 if you leave a comment why you want the book +5 if you commit to review the book on your blog or here. +3 if you add this link to your blog, twitter, Facebook or MySpace page. Leave link. +2 if you add Color Online to your blogroll
Quiz #97 Answer the question and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win. Winners choose their own book from our Prize Bucket.
Dangarembga in 1989, is a semi-autobiographical coming of age story about a young woman in modern Africa. The story takes place in Rhodesia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The story centers around Tambu and Nyasha, female cousins who, until their early teens, lead very different lives. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga Thanks, Natalie.
Some of you may have noticed that Susan, the woman behind Color Online has been away. Around the beginning of the year, she asked a few bloggers, if we wanted to contribute to Color Online. So for the first time Color Online has a team of bloggers. The other day I was wondering how Susan managed to do it all, run Color Online and her personal blog, it's a lot to handle. I don't know when Susan is coming back, but before anything I wish and hope she is well.
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.
