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Book Review: ‘Nic Blake and the Remarkables’ by Angie Thomas

*Given an advanced reading copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy by Angie Thomas is an imaginative, well-developed middle-grade novel from the famous young adult author who gave us The Hate U Give.

Nichole Blake, who goes by Nic, is turning 12 years old, and for her birthday, she is looking forward to being trained by her dad on how to use the Gift as a real Manifestor. The Gift is a supernatural ability, which Nic’s dad has and therefore Nic has inherited. They are known as Remarkables. The human beings without the Gift are called Unremarkables. Though Nic wants a dragon badly, her dad gives her the safer option of a hellhound for her birthday. The hellhound, who is named Cocoa, has horns and is the size of a tiger. When Nic’s best friend JP comes over, he only sees a regular dog as an Unremarkable. Well, Nic has a feeling that JP may have seen more of Cocoa as a hellhound, but she lets that feeling go.

Since Nic and her dad have moved around the U.S. a lot, Nic feels settled in Jackson, Mississippi. It’s a city built on an inactive volcano, but they made a home with finding Remarkable friends at Ms. Lena’s juke joint where Rougarous, Vampires, Giants, and Fairies frequent. Bags with mojos, which control the elements with good intentions, and jujus, which control the elements with bad intentions, are sold and bought there. The juke joint is a safe haven for their community. Her dad works as a handyman, who collects haints, demons, ghouls, and other Remarkable creatures that are destroying Unremarkables’ homes without their knowledge. He sells these creatures to Ms. Lena to find a place for the evil spirits.

In Jackson, homeschooled Nic also has JP, the only other Black kid on the block, as they obsess over middle-grade author TJ Retro’s fantasy series. It reminds Nic of Remarkables, except the characters in the series use Magic, which is considered a corrupt form of the Gift. When they go to a book signing to meet TJ Retro, they learn that he is an old friend of Nic’s dad. Since her dad refuses to teach her how to fully use her Gift, Nic receives a piece of Giftech, or Gift-infused technology, from her favorite author that ignites an unintentional adventure between the Unremarkable world and the Remarkable world. On this adventure, she pulls in JP and Cocoa to help her discover the truth about her family and find the Msaidizi, one of the most powerful tools in the universe, in order to save her dad who is accused of stealing it and kidnapping her.

Black folklore is interwoven into the storyline to heighten the differences between Remarkables and Unremarkables and give the tale a touch of familiarity. In the story, John Henry is the half-Giant who won a rock-drilling contest while building a railroad with a sledgehammer, which was the Msaidizi. High John the Conqueror, the shapeshifter who fell in love with the Devil’s daughter in one story, used the Msaidizi through a plow and an ax to plant and reap acres of corn, one of the impossible tasks given to him by the Devil. Annie Christmas is the half-Giant who used the Msaidizi as a pole for her keelboat to save hundreds of people. All figures are considered to be fictional but believed to be based on real people who overworked themselves to death by proving their superior strength. But in this novel, they all were Remarkables who knew how to use the Msaidizi.

Along with folklore, racial elements are also connected to the Gift. The Blakes’ Gift is believed to have originated in Africa and passed down by their ancestors. Through the pain and trauma amid the trans-Atlantic slave trade, it is believed many people who had the Gift forgot their power and were unable to pass it down. During their adventure, Nic and her friends are kidnapped by a wizard who brings them to the Grand Wizard, as in the KKK, though the terrorist organization is not mentioned. Wizards are considered dangerous because they know about the Gift and use a wand to conjure up what they think is close to the Gift. The wizards claim to not be associated with the KKK, but they still want to capture Nic and her friends for their Manifestor connections.

Overall, the book is fast-paced with fantasy that seems more authentic to the Southern landscape with the mentions of haints and folkloric legends. A key to the author’s success in previous novels is getting into a young character’s mind and speaking in their voice, and this novel gives us another relatable character finding her true identity amid tough circumstances. This book review is a dose of the unputdownable story to avoid spoilers, but, of course, the ending opens to the potential second book in the series.

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Book Review: ‘The Black Girls Left Standing’ by Juliana Goodman

The Black Girls Left Standing by Juliana Goodman leans on the grittiness to tell the story of a Black girl living in the Chicago projects searching for why her unarmed sister was killed outside the home of a police officer. 

Sixteen-year-old Beau Willet is trying to overcome the disbelief of attending her older sister Katia’s funeral. She wears a memorial sweatshirt in honor of her 22-year-old sister, who was killed by a single gunshot wound to the face fired by an off-duty police officer outside of his home in the middle of the night. Katia was accused of planning to rob the home, but Beau doesn’t accept that narrative. She depends on her friend Deja to help her figure out what happened to Katia, who was with her boyfriend Jordan at the time of the killing. Except Jordan has been missing since Katia’s death, and he is the only person who could clear Katia’s name. 

I should be crying, too, but I can’t for some reason. It’s like my ducts are all blocked up and the tears are dripping down my insides instead of my cheeks. Katia, why didn’t you just stay home with me instead? 

Beau knows the police department and the city will not investigate her sister’s killing fairly because she’s Black, her sister was Black, and they’re from the impoverished Grady Park neighborhood where Black people get killed all the time. Katia’s death is in the news cycle for what feels like a second until the rest of the city moves on and feels sympathy for the police officer and his family instead of Beau and her family. To get the answers she needs, Beau is determined to find Jordan. She feels alone in her quest when it comes to her family, her parents too depressed to push for more answers while trying to keep the roof over their heads. Deja seems occupied in a new relationship to help Beau solve the crime, and Beau feels guilty pulling Deja into her web of grief. While she’s looking for Jordan, Beau finds herself falling for Champion, a boy she goes to school with though he lives in a McMansion in the affluent Purple Hills neighborhood.

Everything’s all screwed up between me and Champion because I’m the girl with the murdered sister. Neither of us says it, but if he asked me to be his girl now, everyone would think it’s because he feels sorry for me. 

As Beau and Champion become more than friends, Beau finds herself and her friends engaging in petty fights with girls and guys in Grady Park who may or may not know what really happened to Katia. Nobody is snitching. Then Beau gets an anonymous tip that Jordan is in her apartment building complex. At first, she doesn’t believe that rumor because she knows everyone in the complex and hasn’t seen anything amiss; she swears she would’ve noticed Jordan by now, better yet someone would’ve been loyal to her and told her about his whereabouts.

While Deja seems to fade into her relationship, Beau taps Sonnet, another friend who uses her Pretty Little Liars knowledge to play detective. Sonnet lives a life more similar to Champion’s, so Beau feels immense pressure to protect Sonnet and herself. The guilt of Beau’s grief ebbs and flows as she leans on the friends not used to the atmosphere of the projects she lives in. The deeper they get into their investigation, the higher the stakes are. Blindly, Beau follows every clue until she finds herself in trouble to the point she may meet the same fate Katia did. 

Being inside Beau’s mind from the first-person perspective is incredible as she pushes aside the grief and depression of losing her sister while looking for answers for why her sister died at the hands of a gun fired by an off-duty police officer. Why was Katia outside this officer’s home at 4 a.m. with Jordan? Why did Jordan disappear? The questions resound throughout the pages as Beau tries to unwrap the mystery in her crime-ridden neighborhood where asking such questions about why someone was killed could get you killed. When Beau is in the bedroom she shared with Katia, the gloom overwhelms her as she looks through her sister’s belongings for any clues, but she only finds what could’ve been Katia’s destiny. The plans for the future seem to be the only clues Katia left behind, and it strengthens Beau more in doing the work the police won’t do. 

Overall, this young adult novel stands out with the reality of being a Black kid in the inner city and feeling like you, anyone who looks like you, and anyone you love doesn’t matter. Beau knows her sister’s killing will never get a fair investigation because Katia was accused of burglarizing a police officer’s home. But she knows her sister wouldn’t commit such an act, so she’s the only one who could stand up for Katia. Beau and her friends are the Black girls left standing who have to stand up for the Black girls who don’t make it out of places like Grady Park. In the audiobook version, narrator Ariel Blake does a fantastic job of conveying the sadness and determination in Beau’s voice. Out of similar works such as Angie Thomas’ books set in the similar fictional neighborhood of Garden Heights in The Hate U Give, On the Come Up, and Concrete Rose, Juliana Goodman’s debut novel makes a splash in the subgenre of social justice YA with digging into the mental health aspect of showing the tumultuous journey of the teenage main character struggling with how society paints girls like her, including her dead sister, and trying to prove that they deserve to be seen like any other girls.

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Banning Books Could Lead to Defunding Libraries 

SHE LIT: Banning Books Could Lead to Defunding Libraries 📖

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Photo by Element5 Digital: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-book-from-shelf-1370298/

Public libraries becoming targets for collections that include LGBTQ+ books

A rural Michigan town defunding its library over books featuring LGBTQ+ themes is the next level of book bans.

Book bans are at their highest level, according to the American Library Association that marks Banned Books Week every year this month. From Sept. 18-24, we will mark a year where more than ever school districts are voting to remove books from campus libraries, lawsuits are being waged to remove books from public libraries and bookstores, and now those public libraries could lose community funding over a particular book.

Patmos Library in Hudsonville, Michigan, was facing closure in early August after voters rejected a measure to renew funding for the library. The vote was blamed on a campaign waged by conservative Christians who believe books associated with LGBTQ+ themes are “grooming” children to be pedophiles, a QAnon belief that has become a mainstream conservative theory, according to media reports.

Less than 1% of Patmos Library’s books have LGBTQ+ content, the nonprofit advocacy group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State found. Yet the library was defunded.

Most book bans seem to occur within school libraries since parents have more power to address their school districts to remove books they deem inappropriate for children to read. Of course, many of these books being targeted are by LGBTQ+ authors and authors of color who write about gender, sexuality, and race.

But more of these book bans are trickling inside public libraries where individuals are heading to their city councils and court systems to request books be removed from libraries and even bookstores.

A concerned Patmos Library patron started a GoFundMe that now has raised over $255,000, which is $10,000 over the goal to help the library continue operations throughout 2023. Renowned romance novelist Nora Roberts noticed the GoFundMe after reading The Washington Post story about the library’s defunding and donated $50,000, her publicist’s blog notes. The funds are from the author personally, and not from her foundation, the blog adds.

Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir is one of the books at issue. It’s also the most banned book in America. The author and cartoonist, who uses e/eir pronouns, discusses eir discovery of eir gender identity in the graphic novel. The book was also at the center of an obscenity matter in a Virginia court that is resolved for now (more on that below).

Though Patmos Library is located in a community with a population of just less than 10,000, the possibility that a library can be defunded over the books they choose to carry is concerning. The head librarian, who identified as queer, quit amid the defunding campaign after being harassed inside the library, BuzzFeed News reports, adding other librarians had also quit for similar reasons.

Now that the library received national support to keep going, hardships still lie ahead. The harassment may continue toward the librarians, another campaign to somehow rid the library of LGBTQ+ books may be planned, or people may stop using the library.

The library’s next board meeting takes place Sept. 12, so we will see what the library has in store under the spotlight glow. Though the money will be there, its location in a community that largely wants it gone over a few books is an ongoing concern.

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Virginia court dismisses request to label books as obscene

The American Civil Liberties Union announced that its clients were victorious in getting an obscenity lawsuit against two books dismissed. The Circuit Court for the City of Virginia Beach rejected an effort to label Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas as obscene and illegal to sell and lend in the state.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Virginia represented local booksellers and book organizations. Barnes & Noble was the largest target of the lawsuit. Gender Queer was the most banned book in the U.S. last year, according to the American Library Association, one of the ACLU’s clients. Legal experts believe this is just the beginning for these types of lawsuits.

Prolific YA author shares new middle grade book, film trailer

Angie Thomas, the creator of The Hate U Give, has been quite busy this week. She introduced her upcoming The Manifestor Prophecy middle grade trilogy with the first book Nic Blake and the Remarkables. In an Instagram post, she writes the roots of the book were inside her for 15 years and the story has “hellhound puppies and haints and a literal Underground Railroad. It has Black Girl Magic.” The first installment is expected to be released April 4, 2023 from HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray.

During last Sunday’s presentation of the MTV Video Music Awards, the full trailer debuted for On the Come Up, Angie’s sophomore hip-hop-infused YA novel. Directed by actress Sanaa Lathan, the film stars Jamila Gray as Bri, the prodigal daughter of a late hip-hop legend trying to find her voice in music and at school. The film will start streaming on Paramount+ on Sept. 23.

While sharing the news of her projects via social media, she also shared her concerns as a Jackson, Mississippi, native seeing the current water crisis impacting the city of 150,000 unfold. Damaged infrastructure has caused the Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves to declare a state of emergency over residents—more than 80% who are Black—having little to no water pressure.

Reese Witherspoon adds kids’ author to her bookish titles

Book club queen and book-to-screen producer Reese Witherspoon announced the upcoming release for her new children’s picture book, Busy Betty, about a girl on a mission to bathe her dog before her friends come over to play. Her book launch will take place at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville. Illustrated by Xindi Yan, the book is published by Flamingo Books under Penguin Random House and will be available for sale on Oct. 4.

Michelle Buteau’s memoir-based comedy series starts casting

Comedienne and The Circle host Michelle Buteau’s book is getting the screen treatment. Her 2020 essay collection, Survival of the Thickest, will be turned into a Netflix comedy series of the same name starring the author in a fictionalized storyline. Her character will be a plus-size, single, Black woman who is struggling as a stylist but “determined to not only survive but thrive with the support of her chosen family, a body positive attitude, and a cute v-neck with some lip gloss,” according to Deadline. Tone Bell and Tasha Smith will also star.

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"The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School" by Sonora Reyes

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A Discussion on Banned Books Looks at Disinformation

<![CDATA[SHE LIT: A Discussion on Banned Books Looks at Disinformation]]> https://mailchi.mp/729f922e52fe/a-discussion-on-banned-books-looks-at-disinformation https://mailchi.mp/729f922e52fe/a-discussion-on-banned-books-looks-at-disinformation SHE LIT: A Discussion on Banned Books Looks at Disinformation

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📚 Join the #shelitbookclub on July 31 as we discuss the novel Red Clocks by Leni Zumas amid the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Details can be found here.

Words get twisted after an author and librarian discuss banned books at event

Over the last week, the American Library Association hosted its 2022 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., and a panel about banned books became a hot topic on #BookTwitter with numerous authors and librarians alike sharing their opinions.

From the social media comments, young adult best-selling author and banned books ambassador Jason Reynolds was attacked over the assumption he supported Holocaust denial books being made available at libraries. Nancy Pearl, an author dubbed “Seattle’s most famous librarian” by The Seattle Times who was sitting on the Unite Against Book Bans panel last Saturday, implied she felt bad for keeping Holocaust denial books on library shelves because they’re “needed.”

So, should books that promote disinformation and misinformation like Holocaust denial books be banned from libraries?

What sparked the firestorm is a tweet that went viral on #BookTwitter from librarian Kelsey Bogan who said the panel seemed to have a “sentiment” that Holocaust denial books should stay on library shelves.

“What did I not want to add in the collection? Personally, I did not want to add Holocaust-denying books. That was offensive to me. Did I think we needed them? Sad to say, yes,” said Nancy, who is Jewish, as quoted in the panel’s livestream viewed by Jewish Insider. “But we talk about — we’re anti, we shouldn’t ban books. It’s much more nuanced and it’s much more difficult than one often tends to think that it is.”

As the Black male author on the panel, Jason seemed to be more in the crossfire than Nancy when it came to social media commentary.

Further in her Twitter thread, Kelsey says Jason “did not initiate the comment but did verbally agree/state it too, sort of against his better judgement?” Jason tweeted in response to Kelsey that he may have been “inarticulately trying to say” his thoughts on the subject of Holocaust denial books in reference to banned books.

But the main Black Twitterverse authors Dhonielle Clayton, Bethany C. Morrow, and LL McKinney said the barrage of negative comments about Jason over the panel is an example of anti-Blackness since the author never made the original comment, but due to his proximity to Nancy the commenter, he became more than fair game on social media. They and other supporters of Jason noted that the apologies and clarifications from Nancy and Kelsey came days later, enough time for more tweets to be written up against Jason.

For a bit of background, books that deny the Holocaust, promote gay conversion, claim abortion is murder, or recommend vaccines kill people, for example, usually are not under the umbrella of banned books. They tend to stay on shelves, if libraries allow them, unless an individual or group advocate for their removal from a library.

Most books are banned from libraries after concerns have been brought up about the books being read by children. The books that usually see bans center on the diversity of experiences dealing with race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation.

The conversation was really about library collection development policies, according to Unite Against Book Bans, a national initiative supporting the fight against censorship and the panel sponsor. Nancy, in her words, tried to say she has put Holocaust denial books on library shelves because it’s still literature that should be accessible.

She said the same thing in a 2017 article for The World. Here’s a snippet from the article:

Pearl says there have been times where she’s come across a book she doesn’t agree with or finds offensive. This is a time where she says she has to give herself a “stern talking to.”

Books promoting Holocaust denial have come to Pearl’s library. She puts them on the shelf, regardless of her opinion.

“It wouldn’t be a library if there weren’t books that annoyed people.”

Ultimately, she says, reading makes people more compassionate. “It makes us get outside ourselves.” Something she feels people need to do more and more in today’s political and cultural climate.

The banned books movement is to ensure books covering different experiences are made available to readers, especially children depending on the reading level and genre. The fate of books that could be classified as misinformation — defined as incorrect or misleading information, or disinformation — defined as false information deliberately and often covertly spread in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth, is still up in the air.

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Macmillan sees book sales impacted by cybersecurity attack

Publishing giant Macmillan Publishers saw its computer systems become compromised by a data breach this week. Industry news outlet Publishers Lunch reported the “security incident” on Monday and said Macmillan noticed the incident on Saturday and had to close its offices for most of the week.

Staffers took to Twitter to say they were slowly gaining access back into their Google Suite tools, including Gmail.

Bookstores said they weren’t able to place orders with Macmillan, which ultimately is impacting book sales, reported the Wall Street Journal. As of today, orders can be placed in the U.S. but not processed, according to Publishers Lunch.

Third book in Tomi Adeyemi’s best-selling series announced

The third novel from Tomi Adeyemi’s Legacy of Orisha fantasy YA series is titled Children of Anguish and Anarchy, according to the author’s Instagram post on Monday. In two photos featuring blue sticky notes, one photo shows the title while the next one reads “Destruction is a form of creation.” The book follows the record-breaking Children of Blood and Bone and the 2019 follow-up Children of Virtue and Vengeance.

On the Come Up film trailer debuts at BET Awards

Angie Thomas of The Hate U Give fame will see her sophomore novel on the big screen. On the Come Up features Bri, an up-and-coming teen rapper trying to follow in her late father’s footsteps. The trailer was first seen on the BET Awards last Sunday. Set to be released on Paramount+, the movie will be actress Sanaa Lathan’s directorial debut. Sanaa has been involved in book-to-TV projects such as the 2000 film Disappearing Acts based on Terry McMillan’s novel of the same name.

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Film Adaptation of Angie Thomas’ ‘On the Come Up’ Starts Production

Prolific young adult author Angie Thomas has teased the start of filming for her sophomore novel’s take on the big screen.

With Angie serving as a screenwriter and producer on the film, On the Come Up started filming Oct. 25, according to the author’s tweet.

In social media posts over the last week, the author drops other details such as actress Sanaa Lathan assuming her first stint as a feature film director. The film stars Jamila C. Gray as the main character Bri, a rising rapper trying to follow in her late father’s footsteps career-wise as her family battles eviction and deals with the aftermath of a traumatic school incident. Bri’s best friends Malik and Sonny will be played by Michael Cooper Jr. and Miles Gutierrez Riley, respectively.

The script is written by Kay Oyegun, who is no stranger to book-to-film projects with also penning episodes for Queen Sugar based on Natalie Baszile‘s novel of the same name and the screenplay for the upcoming Children of Blood and Bone from the debut novel of the young adult fantasy saga by Tomi Adeyemi. Variety reports that rappers Lil Yachty and GaTa are also a part of the cast.

According to Angie’s social media feeds, the project is being filmed in Atlanta.

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Book Review: ‘Concrete Rose’ by Angie Thomas

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas crafts the origin story of the Carter patriarch from her successful debut The Hate U Give and shows the parallels of Maverick’s teenage life in the late 1990s with his daughter Starr’s contemporary experience.

This prequel focuses on 17-year-old Maverick and his foray into unplanned parenthood amid a contentious relationship with the gang King Lords. Maverick is making amends with his girlfriend, Lisa, after a brief breakup and hanging out with his friends like gang members King and cousin Dre. But he’s keeping a secret from Lisa: He may be the father of King’s son. Maverick learns he is the father, which creates a hardship for him and his single mother and a rift between him and King. Dre is the main person Maverick can depend on since he’s also a father and preparing to marry his baby’s mother. As the big brother figure, Dre advises Maverick to get a real job at the mom-and-pops grocery instead of selling drugs. Maverick is desperate for money, but he knows his cousin is looking out for him. Then that protection disappears when Dre is shot dead in his car. Maverick is the first responder and vows to avenge his cousin’s murder. As he follows leads, Maverick is having a hard time supporting his son who he names Seven, the number he calls perfect. He has to decide if selling drugs and killing Dre’s killer is worth it when he finds out he will be a father for the second time.

As a loyal reader to Angie Thomas’ work, this novel becomes more entertaining when piecing together the timeline of seeing where Seven, Lisa, Uncle Carlos, and Starr intersect in Maverick’s life. It’s a portrait of a family who has become familiar in pages and onscreen. The author even thanks actor Russell Hornsby, who plays adult Maverick in The Hate U Give film, at the end for inspiring Maverick’s teenage story. The intersection continues with Maverick witnessing the aftermath of Dre’s murder similar to Starr witnessing the actual murder of her friend Khalil by a police officer. With Starr’s situation, we know the killer while Maverick is carrying the guilt of not knowing the killer. Maverick also finds himself alone in advocating for Dre, who falls out of the media cycle as another Black gang member murder victim unlike Starr who gets unwanted attention with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement spotlighting Khalil’s murder by police.

Angie Thomas and fellow multicultural young adult author Elizabeth Acevedo seem to be the top best-selling authors in the subgenre as evidenced in what literary agents say in Twitter pitch parties. But they both prioritize tropes among teens of color such as teen pregnancy in their novels. Though their stories show a realistic depth to the situation, this thread is becoming more common in YA literature when teen pregnancy rates are on the decline, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Concrete Rose, the author has other characters, particularly Maverick’s extended family, upset about him not having only one baby but two babies within months. Others vocalizing the disappointment sits heavy with Maverick that adds to the allure of earning more money illegally.

Overall, like its related novels in the Garden Heights universe, Concrete Rose flows with familiarity with the first-person narrative and shows a character’s true feelings about hardships associated with their surroundings.



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How Moments of Racial Tension Are Shaping YA Literature

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Six well-known Black female authors with best-selling credentials came together to announce their joint project of a young adult novel surrounding the 2003 New York City blackout. Though the collaboration is a publisher dream, it also shows how moments of racial tension particularly in recent U.S. history are the moneymaking moves for authors of color to get their literary voices out into the world.

Angie Thomas of The Hate U Give, Tiffany D. Jackson of Grown, Nic Stone of Dear Martin, Nicola Yoon of Everything, Everything; Dhonielle Clayton of The Belles, and Ashley Woodfolk of The Beauty That Remains are teaming up for Blackout. The collection of six interconnected stories that will “bring the glowing warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of charming, hilarious, and heartwarming stories that shine a bright light through the dark,” according to publisher HarperCollins Publishers and its imprint Quill Tree Books. The book’s release date is June 22, 2021.

Mistaken for terrorism almost two years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the Northeast blackout of 2003 was a massive power outage that crippled the East Coast, most notably New York City. This sent hundreds of thousands of people to the streets after many had been evacuated off the largest public transportation system or had left their vehicles since traffic lights weren’t working. With the dark atmosphere on a ninety-degree day in August, unease took over some areas as ambulances raced to destinations and people stole merchandise. Race and youth naturally became a concern.

Making race and youth the main elements in a young adult novel seems to be more common now, especially with the contributions of the aforementioned authors. Angie Thomas rose to literary fame when The Hate U Give explored the theme of unarmed Black boys being shot by police or racists as did Nic Stone’s Dear Martin. Another recent example includes Christina Hammonds Reed’s debut novel The Black Kids, which revolves around the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and includes a mention of the 1921 Black Wall Street massacre. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star Karyn Parsons recently spoke about her middle grade novel How High the Moon, which revolves around the 1944 George Stinney Jr. execution.

These historical events impacting Black communities were rarely taught in school but are seeing a resurgence in mentions amid the anti-racism movement. As students are learning from their homes, some YA authors of color like Dhonielle Clayton and Kelly Yang are speaking to classrooms via Zoom though they said they dealt with racial discrimination.

YA literature, particularly for children of color, is evolving to be a supplemental lesson on race and youth that will take moments from the not-so-distant past and use character voices to convey those missing perspectives.

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After Creating #PublishingPaidMe, LL McKinney Hosts Juneteenth Book Fest

Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash

L.L. McKinney, the author behind A Blade So Black, A Dream So Dark, and the upcoming third novel in the series A Crown So Cursed, has organized the Juneteenth Book Fest for today starting at 10 a.m. EST.

The videos will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube. Fresh off creating the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag earlier this month asking for White authors to reveal the amount of their advances on Twitter to show discrepancies between advances of Black authors, L.L. is leading the way on promoting and supporting Black authors during the age of #BlackStoriesMatter.

Juneteenth, the June 19 holiday celebrating the end of slavery, has reached a popularity peak as several name-brand companies this year committed to giving their employees the day off to reflect on racial injustice. The holiday, which is recognized in 46 states and the District of Columbia, has mostly been celebrated in the African American community since 1865. With the latest civil unrest sparking the conversation on racism in general and in the book industry, a Juneteenth book event helps push awareness about the significance of the holiday and Black authors’ works in today’s environment.

The featured bookpeople and panels are:

We Need a Hero: Black Superheroes in Comics

Panelists: L.L. McKinney and Mikki Kendall

Moderator: Karama Horne, The Blerd Gurl

Queer and Black On and Off the Page

Panelists: Julian Winters, Claire Kann, Roya Marsh, Candice Iloh, and Ashley Woodfolk

Moderator: Leah Johnson

Light It Up!: FIYAH Magazine and Black Short Stories

Panelists: The FIYAH Magazine team

It’s a Different World: Black Secondary Worlds in Fantasy

Panelists: Dhonielle Clayton and Kwame Mbalia

Moderator: L.L McKinney

Black Love: Writing Black Romance

Panelists: Farrah Rochon, Beverly Jenkins, and Rebekah Weatherspoon

Moderator: Alyssa Cole

Our Truth: Being Black in Publishing

Panelists: Zakiya Jamal, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nivia Evans

Moderator: Saraciea J. Fennell, event co-organizer

All of Me: Black Memoirs

Panelists: Mikki Kendall, Keah Brown, and Nichole Perkins

Moderator: L.L. McKinney

Black Stories Are Not Niche

Panelists: Lamar Giles, Leah Johnson, Justin A. Reynolds, and Kim Johnson

Moderator: Tiffany D. Jackson

My Mythology: Reclaiming Stories of Old

Panelists: Tracy Deonn, L.L McKinney, Bethany C. Morrow, and Kalynn Bayron

Moderator: Patrice Caldwell

Capturing the Moments: What It Means to Write Black Stories Right Now

Panelists: Tiffany D. Jackson, Angie Thomas, Bethany C. Morrow, L.L. McKinney

Moderator: Julian Winters

The Kids Are Alright: Writing for Black Kids with Middle Grade

Panelists: Kwame Mbalia, Karen Strong, and Alicia D. Williams

Moderator: Nic Stone

One Cause: Many Voices – Editing and Contributing to Black Anthologies

Panelists: Bethany C. Morrow and Patrice Caldwell

Moderator: L.L. McKinney

Categories
what's lit

YA Author Kimberly Jones Explains Civil Unrest Logic in Viral Video

A young adult author’s video interview discussing how race, socioeconomic status, and history are the root of the latest civil unrest has gone viral.

Kimberly Jones, the co-author of the young adult novel I’m Not Dying With You Tonight along with Gilly Segal, passionately spelled out why people are protesting, rioting, or looting after the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. His death has sparked nationwide civil unrest as the U.S. slowly comes out of the COVID-19 quarantine.

In a George Floyd tribute T-shirt, Kimberly says she supports both viewpoints from Black people saying they don’t want rioting or looting in our communities and they don’t want to support mainstream White-centric businesses. She then breaks down the difference between protestors, rioters, and looters—a definition that the media struggles with in its reporting, which leads to people misunderstanding the situation such as in the example with the Red Sofa Literary Agency founder who called police on people she classified as looters last month.

“Let’s ask ourselves why in this country in 2020 the financial gap between poor Blacks and the rest of the world is at such a distance that people feel like their only hope and only opportunity to get some of the things that we flaunt and flash in front of them all the time is to walk through a broken glass window and get it,” Kimberly says in the video.

“But they are so hopeless that getting that necklace, getting that TV, getting that change, getting that bed, getting that phone, whatever it is they’re going to get because in that moment when riots happen and they present an opportunity of looting that’s their only opportunity to get it. We need to be questioning that. Why are people that poor? Why are people that broke? Why are people that food-insecure, that clothing-insecure?”

What also helped the video go viral is her Monopoly comparison to how economics work in America.

“If I right now decided to play Monopoly with you and for four hundred rounds of playing Monopoly, I didn’t allow you to have any money,” she says, pointing to the four centuries that Black people have been in the U.S. dealing with injustice after injustice. “I didn’t allow you to have anything on the board. I didn’t allow for you to have anything. And then we play another fifty rounds of Monopoly and everything that you gained and you earned while playing that round of Monopoly was taken from you.

“That was Tulsa, that was Rosewood. Those were places we built Black economic wealth, and we were self-sufficient. We owned our stores. When we owned our property. And they burned them to the ground.”

She refers to the race massacres in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 and Rosewood, Florida in 1923 in which White mobs destroyed thriving Black communities. Descendants of people who were impacted by those massacres are calling for reparations.

In a tweet, Kimberly wrote, “I just took the time to go through the first hundred or so responses in this thread and I am FLOORED! The support is so welcome and overwhelming.”

https://twitter.com/kimlatricejones/status/1269275215663685635

Titled “How Can We Win,” the video interview is on YouTube via David Jones Media and has a timestamp of being posted on June 1 and the interview conducted on May 31. David Jones wrote in the video’s summary:

“On day two, Sunday the 31st, he activated his dear friend author Kimberly Jones to tag along and conduct interviews. During a moment of downtime he captured these powerful words from her and felt the world couldn’t wait for the full length documentary, they needed to hear them now.”

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry, who recently received the golden Oscar statue for his six-minute film and accompanying book Hair Love illustrated by Vashti Harrison, shared the video on June 5.

Authors like Angie Thomas and Jason Reynolds were quick to point out that Kimberly is a Black author who deserves the support with the purchase of her book. Harper Collins Publishers’ Epic Reads even chimed in.

According to the book’s description, “I’m Not Dying with You Tonight follows two teen girls―one Black, one White―who have to confront their own assumptions about racial inequality as they rely on each other to get through the violent race riot that has set their city on fire with civil unrest.”

The video is approaching half a million views on YouTube.

Categories
book reviews

Book Review: ‘On the Come Up’ by Angie Thomas

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas follows a teenage girl through her rise in the local rap game as she learns to navigate her emotions around a traumatic event at her high school. Like Angie’s debut novel The Hate U Give, this story features a black teen girl trying to overcome obstacles in the fictional Garden Heights.

The daughter of the late rap legend Lawless, Bri is 16 and hungry to jump-start her rap career. Her Aunt Pooh becomes her unofficial agent by hooking Bri up with a chance at the main rap battle competition in the city. Once she steps up into the ring, Bri feels her nerves until the rapper across from her, Milez, disses her father. She never knew her father, but she knows he deserves the respect of every rapper in Garden Heights. She transfers that anger into her rhymes, emerging as the winner. She soon learns her competitor is the son of Lawless’ manager, Supreme. And Supreme sees the opportunity to make Bri a star. While riding the wave of future stardom, Bri is slammed against the floor at her school by two white security guards. As one of a few students of color at the historically white performing arts school, Bri knows she walks in those hallways with her skin color being seen as a threat. She takes that frustration and puts it into a song. Aunt Pooh warns Bri not to release that faux gangster front song, but when Aunt Pooh disappears, Bri decides to upload the song online. It goes viral but brings up a lot of negative attention Bri was not ready for.

The story is a great follow-up to The Hate U Give with a magnified focus on hip-hop and the lifestyles the musicians feel they have to assume due to stereotypes. Bri lives in the black underdeveloped neighborhood of Garden Heights with her Aunt Pooh, who’s in the gang Garden Disciples, and her father being murdered in the streets while at the top of his game because he was faking the lifestyle of being a hardened, weapon-strapped gangster. The juxtaposition of knowing who you are and knowing who others think you are follows Bri while other characters like Bri’s mother Jayda and Milez try to rise above the stereotypes. The school incident is unfortunately becoming viral with many kids of color being thrown to the ground by a white teacher or staffer over a disciplinary issue. Again, Angie weaves a racially charged issue into her book like the shootings of unarmed black people in The Hate U Give.

Overall, this is another hypnotic read from the author that dives deep into a realistic story that’s rare to find in today’s young adult literature.

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Categories
what's lit

Best-selling Young Adult Authors to Release Journals

The authors of The Hate U Give and The Poet X recently have announced they will be releasing journals as extensions of their best-selling young adult novels.

With her literary landscape-changing The Hate U Give and On the Come Up still charting on the New York Times best-sellers list, Angie Thomas told her 100,000 Instagram followers last week that Find Your Voice: A Guided Journal for Writing Your Truth will be a guide for aspiring writers. From the first look at Epic Reads, the journal has questions in colorfully graphic lettering to help readers jot down intentions for their characters, the characters’ voices, and the structure of the story. The journal will be released in March 2020.

Another award-winning YA novelist, Elizabeth Acevedo, also recently told her 43,000 Instagram followers that Write Yourself a Lantern: A Journal Inspired by The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo will come out in April 2020. Her sophomore novel, With the Fire On High, made a splash over the summer due to the impact of her 2017 debut, The Poet X. Fulfilling a similar purpose as Angie’s journal, Elizabeth’s journal will guide readers into creating their poetry with bold words decorating the pages along with empty lines to fill.

Releasing journals to complement top-selling books is growing in popularity with, for example, clean queen Marie Kondo famously coming out with Life-Changing Magic: A Journal to accompany her “spark joy” empire. Though her genre of self-help seems to be the most appropriate place for companion journals, they may also thrive in the YA space to give teens a palette to drive their creativity.

Both journals are with HarperCollins Publishers and geared toward the YA audience.

Categories
book reviews

Book Review: ‘The Hate U Give’ by Angie Thomas

The Hate U GiveThe Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas looks into the Black Lives Matter movement from a personal viewpoint of a Black teen struggling in two different worlds, and it’s done perfectly.

Starr lives in Garden Heights, the predominantly Black side of the city riddled with crime, but attends Williamson Prep in the ritzy white suburb. While she balances her two personalities in these two different places, she gets caught up at a party where a shooting breaks out. She runs out with her childhood friend, Khalil, and they drive off. A police officer soon stops them for something trivial, and for showing attitude, Khalil gets shot and killed for reaching in his car for his hairbrush. The officer mistook it for a gun. And now Starr as the witness struggles with what comes after.

Starr deals with her nurse mother and ex-con father who owns a grocery store in the neighborhood; her old half-brother Seven who feels he has to take care of his other family under siege by a ganglord; her cop uncle; her white girlfriend Hailey who makes racist comments at school; insecurities around her white boyfriend Chris; and all her friends and neighbors in Garden Heights she feels she’s hurting somehow for not knowing how to approach the situation.

The novel explores a real young Black girl perspective unheard of in the young adult genre, so it was exciting to read that voice. Her voice is raw, so at first it’s wonky to get used to the slang and how she explains her world, but it comes through fast enough to the point where the reader can get devoured by what’s going on. There are a lot of elements, but it shows real-life situations for a teen girl living in two worlds and seeing her friend die at the hands of a cop. Definitely a must-read for being a genre standout and looking forward to how the book will play out on the silver screen.

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