Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo (translated by Ann Leonori) is a young adult novel based on the true story about a boy who, as a child slave in Pakistan, changed the outlook for the hopeless children who work at the rug making factory he has been transferred to. As told from the fictionalized perspective of a young
Passenger on the Pearl by Winifred Conkling (Algonquin Books, January 13, 2015) is a middle-grade nonfiction story about two young girls who sought to escape slavery in 1840s Washington, D.C. Emily Edmonson was only 13 when she joined siblings and others on the small ship The Pearl in hopes to escape North. It was the
As I’ve scoured the lists of books about revolutionary America for a book to read for my own education, I struggled to find one that covered a variety of people (I love biographies, but I can’t read one about everyone!) and eras (I would love to learn about all eras of the revolution, from the
I wonder if my recent news about my upcoming arrival prompted me to notice this book on the New Books shelf? Possibly. Baby Monkey is a GIRL! and I’m delighted and excited that Raisin will have a little sister. At any rate, when I saw the biography of the two foremost proponents of women’s rights
Melodrama is defined by Merriam-Webster as a work characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization. By creating a world with both excessively good characters and excessively evil characters, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel about the horrors of slavery is certainly melodramatic. Yet, given her intended audience and the
Three books I ended up reading during the 48HBC were about slavery, plus I’m still in the middle of Gone with the Wind, which provides a quite different perspective on the institution. I really enjoyed the topical reading, because it’s giving me a more holistic view of slavery in different eras through different eyes. Of
In Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979), a modern black woman’s ancestors haunt her, calling her back to them for assistance. Dana comes to terms with her own family’s history and comes to understand firsthand just what her predecessors dealt with. Kindred is not a pleasant story. After all, it deals with slavery and the question
In his narrative of life in slavery and what led him to escape, Frederick Douglass captured the chief dilemmas that slaves dealt with, including slavery of the mind. Douglass’s slavery in Baltimore and surrounding areas was horrendous, and yet it was, as he admitted, quite tame compared to those experiences that slaves on plantations in
This is a “must read” book. There, I said it. I am a suburban American stay-at-home mom. I have always been well fed and safe. I have 16+ years of education and I could get more if I felt like it. When I was 26, I delivered my first child naturally in a hospital with
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