Tag: balzer and bray

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book reviews

Book Review: ‘Nigeria Jones’ by Ibi Zoboi

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

Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi follows the daughter of a Black revolutionary in Philadelphia trying to fulfill her mother’s wish for her to have a normal life.

Sixteen-year-old Nigeria is the daughter of Kofi Sankofa, an activist who has built his identity and his community around uplifting people in the African diaspora with his pro-African beliefs. Nigeria has always been in his shadow as his warrior princess who can practice shooting guns under the protection of the Second Amendment and organize the youth who seek guidance in their community household. She also takes care of her 1-year-old brother Freedom.

With her mother missing, Nigeria takes it upon herself to be that motherly figure to Freedom while trying to find answers of why her mother is no longer around. Her mother’s friend KD, a White woman, tells Nigeria that her mother wanted her to attend the Philadelphia Friends School, a Quaker high school. It’s the same school KD’s daughter Sage, who is biracial, attends. And Sage and Nigeria used to be close, but Kofi has driven a wedge between the families, not wanting someone White in his circle who could allegedly taint his daughter’s mind. Nigeria has been homeschooled her whole life with her education focusing on the African diaspora rather than European history taught in American schools. But if Nigeria’s mother wanted her daughter to go to school, then what is the problem?

While still upholding her responsibilities, Nigeria wanders into the high school her mother had hopes she would attend. At Philly Friends, she follows Sage and her cousin, Kamau, through hallways and in classrooms struggling to find the balance between her tailored education at home and the one presented to her at a predominantly White school. Her new environment welcomes new opportunities, like getting involved in the diversity, equity, and inclusion club and practicing for debate club with a White boy named Liam, who seems to understand Nigeria better than she thought he would. As she battles her father in attending the school, she finds herself tracing the events that led to her mother’s disappearance. Since it was her mother who registered her for the previous school year before she faded out of the picture, Nigeria feels she needs to better understand her mother’s whereabouts in order to accept the new life she envisions for herself.

The story touches on eldest daughter syndrome, a branch of the birth order theory that has taken over the internet. The eldest daughters are usually the ones with the most responsibility and the ones who receive the most blame. Nigeria is experiencing this phenomenon while also coming out of being the only child for 15 years. Though her father treats her as his version of the apple of his eye, Kofi smothers any chance for Nigeria to find her own path under his roof. She supports his teachings while not quite understanding the world outside her home. The father-daughter dynamic pushes Nigeria to seek her own world because her mother is no longer there to soften the blow of any tension between her and her father. Most teenagers are finding themselves around 16, but Nigeria’s journey feels more complicated without her mother and knowing that her mother had other plans for their lives.

Overall, the conflict between Nigeria and the Movement she grew up in makes this young adult novel more layered. The main character is a teenager who really hasn’t experienced the real world with being tied to a community house where she is homeschooled. She is striving to do something most kids her age already do: attend school, especially attend an excellent high school in order to attend an excellent university. But we see all these factors at home weighing her down to the point she doesn’t know how to escape, or she escapes with guilt. It’s a heavier read with the blend of racial and social justice elements that come up throughout the story, but it speaks to the teenage girl who feels like she is unable to think for herself because her life is being controlled at every turn.

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book reviews

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 reviews

Book Review: ‘The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School’ by Sonora Reyes

The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes shows a Mexican American girl’s journey of realizing she’s queer and figuring out to hide her queerness at her new high school. 

We first meet Yamilet “Yami” Flores punching a mirror out of frustration over quitting her job at a café because her ex-best friend Bianca walked in. Bianca had told the student body at their high school that Yami is gay, without Yami’s approval. In fact, Yami is still trying to figure out her sexuality and her identity and only confided in Bianca. The embarrassment convinces Yami to start at a new high school, Slayton Catholic. Attending school with her younger brother Cesar, who skipped a grade so he’s a junior too, will be a fresh start for Yami, who still needs another job to help pay for tuition since her grades failed to garner a scholarship the way Cesar’s grades did. 

Right away, Yami is questioning her decision. The students at her old school are “mostly Black and Brown Chicanes,” while at Slayton 40 minutes away “there’s not a lot of melanin over there.” Yami jokes that she could sell sunscreen to her Slayton classmates to help pay for tuition. At least, she has Cesar by her side. They’re close since Mami works a lot and Papi was deported years ago back to Mexico after getting arrested at an anti-immigration protest though Yami keeps in touch with her father through phone calls, video calls, and text messages.

I put on my favorite gold hoops. They’re not real, but they look it and I like the way the gold frames my face. I feel like Selena Quintanilla. Cute and elegant at the same time. I put extra love into doing my makeup. The hoops and J’s and makeup show all the me the uniform hides. I’m ready. 

Once she gets to school, girls named Becky and Karen call her “ghetto” and ask why she’s trying to look like a “chola.” As the microaggressions continue in the school hallways, Yami meets Bo, a girl of Chinese descent who was adopted by White parents and seems to not let anything bother her as the only openly queer girl at Slayton. Yami wants to be unbothered like Bo. She befriends Bo and starts to develop romantic feelings. But Yami feels she has to squash them because she can’t let her queerness drive her out of another school. 

Yami throws herself into Mami’s Etsy homemade jewelry business to get her mind off her sexuality. Then she notices her brother acting strange. Once she finds out the double life Cesar is leading, Yami rushes to help him hide it from their mother and from their classmates. But the more she gets closer to Bo, the more Yami wants to tell someone she’s gay. She sends the text message professing her queerness, but there’s no response. The anxiety of hiding her identity overwhelms Yami as she starts collecting secrets to keep everyone around her satisfied with their assumptions of who they think she is. 

The novel does a great job of showing a timeline of a 16-year-old girl who is developing feelings for other girls but trying to figure out how to define those feelings and how to define herself. Although she has a supportive family, Yami knows her pious Catholic parents would never approve of her sexuality. And to make matters worse, she thought concealing herself among Catholic school kids would make those feelings go away, make the shame go away. But, of course, Slayton has amplified Yami’s thoughts on navigating queerness as she realizes there are more students like her also struggling with the unfortunate consequences of sharing how they feel with their friends and family. 

Changing schools because of bullying is a central issue. Sometimes, it feels like many parents may not know the full extent of why their child wants to switch schools. Here, we have Mami not only clueless about Yami’s sexuality, but she’s also sharing anti-gay sentiment that she has taken from her religion. Yami carries that fear, shame, and sadness of leaving her old school to start anew because of Bianca’s bullying. Bianca was her best friend, so even the issue of losing a close friend is emphasized in the story with Yami’s upset over Bianca resonating through the pages as she goes to a different school where we don’t see Bianca. Mami also doesn’t realize Yami quit her job over simply seeing Bianca in her workplace. The hasty decision-making many teens do eats away at Yami as she holds onto secrets upon secrets just trying to hide who she is. 

Overall, the coming-of-age debut novel with hints of romance from author Sonora Reyes who identifies as a “queer second-generation immigrant who attended a Catholic high school” shows how queer teens have several obstacles when it comes to revealing their true selves at school and at home, especially when both places are steeped in a religion that does not condone anything outside heterosexuality. The secrecy is overwhelming as people in their orbit may have some degree of stigmatizing thoughts toward the queer community. Once they reveal themselves, their safety becomes an issue, which is addressed with the fear of being kicked out of their homes or not feeling comfortable in their homes based on telling and not telling family members the truth. This story shows not only Yami jumping through hoops to hide her identity, but other characters are also avoiding the inevitable in their own ways.

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what's lit

Meena Harris Adds Phenomenal Book Club to Growing Multimedia Portfolio

Meena Harris attends the Los Angeles screening of “Women of the Movement”. The series is based on the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley, who in 1955 risked her life to find justice after her son Emmett was brutally murdered in the Jim Crow South. The six-episode series will air in three parts beginning Jan. 6, 2022 for three consecutive weeks on ABC.

For a 2021 literary lookback, we noticed Phenomenal Media mature this year with the addition of a book club focused on exposing readers to works by underrepresented authors, particularly women of color.

The four-year-old company founded by Meena Harris launched the Phenomenal Book Club in November with choosing The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story and its young readers’ companion The 1619 Project: Born on the Water as the inaugural picks and inviting author and editor Nikole Hannah-Jones and illustrator Nikkolas Smith to a virtual event. Phenomenal Book Club was the exclusive book club partner for the books based on The New York Times project named after the year enslaved Africans first came to the U.S.

A bona fide social media star, lawyer, and activist, Meena is best known for being the niece of our first female, first Black, and first Asian second-in-command, Vice President Kamala Harris. Her pro-vaccine Dec. 21 tweet announcing she has a breakthrough case of Covid-19 after receiving her booster shot went viral with over 70,000 likes. The success online, her family connections, and her entrepreneurial activism spirit has opened doors for her to grow her media company named after Maya Angelou’s famous poem “Phenomenal Woman.”

Besides her history-making aunt, Meena’s family tree also consists of her mother Maya Harris, who has also developed a reputation expressing her activism via Twitter as a lawyer and policy expert; her stepfather Tony West, the chief legal officer at Uber; and her late grandmother Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist whose story is told in Kamala’s 2020 memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.

Expressing activism through books

Like her aunt, Meena has a publishing career. She wrote two children’s books: Ambitious Girl, published by Little, Brown Young Readers and illustrated by Marissa Valdez, about a girl finding her journey to overcome the “too ambitious” label; and Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, published by HarperCollins’ imprint Balzer + Bray and illustrated by Ana Ramírez González, about the kid versions of her aunt and mother organizing their community. Both New York Times best-selling books came out in the last year and most likely served as inspiration for Phenomenal Book Club.

Meena’s company started in 2017 as Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, a community-oriented organization focused on social causes mainly through message shirts. Top campaigns include the #PhenomenalVoter campaign to encourage voters to exercise their right in the 2018 midterm elections to the Justice for Breonna Taylor last year that manufactured shirts saying “Arrest the Cops Who Killed Breonna Taylor.”

So far, the merch maker’s interaction with over 1,000 celebrities, athletes, and activists has catapulted it into a multimedia venture that also includes Phenomenal Productions that’s described as having “a specific emphasis on communities of color and underrepresented voting blocs.”

Curating books for children

The mother of two daughters, Meena has voiced her opinion that anti-racism works need to be incorporated into children’s libraries through their parents since schools on average have failed to add these works to their curricula. She wrote in The Washington Post op-ed published Nov. 15:

Of course, for Black and Brown parents, this isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept. Many of us have already taken it upon ourselves to give our children the full, accurate history lesson we know they must hear — just as our parents did for us, and their parents for them. But it’s time all American families start taking time at home to discuss the injustices that shaped our nation’s past, the work still to be done in our present, and the values that should define our future.

The new book club will announce selections quarterly and highlight a book already published between those selections. One of the missions of the book club is to aid the publishing industry in upholding its commitments to anti-racism and equity after the George Floyd protests.

Community chats last week were featured on the book club’s Instagram for its first highlight, Severance by Ling Ma, and promoting a giveaway on social media for 50 editions. For the holidays, Phenomenal is selling sweatshirts with a reproductive rights message and cookbooks by women of color.