thursday february 14
In an entry dated January 10, I promised to follow up with the final list of award winners in the first annual Essence Magazine Literary Awards. In a glittering ceremony in New York City, the awards were announced on February 8, and the Essence website offers a photo gallery of many of the honorees. Lifetime Achievement Award winner Terry McMillan was looking very stylish as she announced that she is working on a sequel to her big breakout novel from 1992, Waiting to Exhale. Describing the impact of a life immersed in books, McMillan said, “I don’t know where I would be without words and stories.”
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friday february 01
My grandmother's house was big, old, and beautiful, with enormous trees and a cool-in-the-summertime basement. It sat high on a hill with an impossible set of steps leading up to it from the road.
In The Good House (2003) by Tananarive Due, the grandmother's house is a lot like that, including the steps, except it is located in a place that is alternately blessed and evil. The characters in the book, led by strong-willed and sensible Angela, are gradually and helplessly drawn down into the whirlpool of evil that was mistakenly set loose through vodou by her grandmother Marie.
There is a bit of the classic Haunted House tale in the book, but the story is more creepily centered in the woods where there is magic and magic gone wrong. Due has a gift for plot twists and turns. The characters ring true, and the underlying sense of place sets the tone for a very creepy story.
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thursday january 10
Essence Magazine has long been the source of bestseller lists for African-American readers. The winners of the first annual Essence Literary Awards will be announced on February 8, 2008, and the list of nominated titles is impressive. In addition to books in eight categories, there are two special awards: A Lifetime Achievement Award for Terry McMillan, and a Storyteller of the Year Award, which readers can vote on through January 15. Up for the Storyteller Award are Tanarive Due, L.A. Banks, Lori Bryant-Woolridge, Trisha R. Thomas, and the sensational Eric Jerome Dickey.
Here is a sampling of the great books that have been nominated:
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thursday may 17
The plight of young black male America has been discussed ad nauseam for the last year. Are we to believe the recent report that aired on
Marketplace about young black men dropping out of the job culture?
Then there is the article from the New York Times that warned about the litany of problems facing black men?
And what about the stories presented in last year’s series from The Washington Post that gave an overview of black men? The series Being a Black Man reported on the varied lives of African American males.
In their latest book, Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip Hop Generation, writers Natalie Hopkins and Natalie Y. Moore sift through varying images of the black male in current media and social thought. Divided into eleven chapters, each portion is a different view of black men and their walk in life.
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tuesday april 10
L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a lovely memory of my childhood. Outside the bedrooms in the upstairs hallway of my grandparents' house the walls were lined with old glass-fronted bookcases, filled with my mom's books from her childhood. All 14 Oz books were there, and I spent many happy hours reading them.
Robert Sabuda adapted the first book to his magical pop-up format, staying true to the original illustrations and story.
The cast of characters from Oz would happily surprise any Harry Potter fan: Tick-Tock the Royal Army of Oz, flying monkeys, witches and sorceresses, Ozma, Jack Pumpkinhead, and of course Dorothy herself who would give Harry a run for his money in resourcefulness and courage. The stories were written early in the 20th century but maintain a fantastic sense of adventure that is still enjoyable.
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monday april 09
Debra Dickerson is ubiquitous.
For the last two months she has been everywhere. I have never really thought of her before although I have read a few of her articles on Salon and Slate. Maybe I have heard her on NPR. But after her article positing the question is Barack Obama black enough and then her article about raising her biracial children "aracial" I decided to pick up the book The End of Blackness. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it at first or even if I wanted anyone --especially African Americans-- to see me reading it, fearing that my black card would be immediately revoked on the spot.
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saturday april 07
Years ago, while my daughter was still in diapers, we were having a picnic at the lake with some of my friends. One male friend was taken by the sun shining on the water and sand (what little there was) and picked up my daughter, cradling her in his two hands. He held her aloft, offering her to her to the sky he said, “Behold, the only thing greater than yourself!”
We all laughed, recognizing the opening scene from Roots.
This Easter Sunday TV One will rebroadcast the show to mark the 30th Anniversary of its first airing. When it originally aired, Roots made history by becoming the most watched miniseries of all time. It had an all-star cast and gave actor Levar Burton his start.
After viewing Roots, the show prompted a lot of African Americans to research their family histories. PLCH has excellent resources for those who are looking to discover their own past or just want to brush up on African American history.
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tuesday february 20
Few stories of African American triumphs in the arts are as moving as that of Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Anderson, considered by many the greatest contralto of her time, was barred from using Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who owned the facility. In the widespread protest that followed, Eleanor Roosevelt and other prominent members resigned from the DAR, and Anderson performed instead at the memorial on Easter Sunday. A crowd of 75,000 attended the historic event.
Anderson, who died in 1993, went on to other trailblazing achievements, notably her 1955 debut as the first African American member of the Metropolitan Opera. Her successor in breaking barriers was the magnificent soprano Leontyne Price, the first African American to achieve an international reputation in opera and one of the finest of divas by any measure.
This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price celebrates these two artists through the talents of soprano
Adrienne Danrich. The Cincinnati Opera will present performances tonight at
Memorial Hall and tomorrow night in the Harriet Tubman Theater of the
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, both at 7 p.m. Touring programs are also available through February 23.
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thursday february 08
The next lecture in the Library’s weekly Black History Month series will be “Cincinnati’s Black Community in the Pre-Civil War Era,” presented by Nikki Marie Taylor (Saturday, February 10, 2:00 in the Huenefeld Tower Room). Professor Taylor, who recently joined the University of Cincinnati Department of History, is the author of Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati's Black Community, 1802-1868.
Frontiers of Freedom is a study of the determination, resourcefulness, and resilience of African American settlers in this Mason-Dixon border town, as notorious for racism – often violent – as it was distinguished by the work of abolitionists and Underground Railroad conductors, including Harriet Beecher Stowe and Levi Coffin.
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saturday january 20
Edward P. Jones is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Known World, which weaves the lives of several interconnecting African-American families back and forth through the nineteenth century.
His latest work, All Aunt Hagar's Children,is a collection of fourteen short stories echoing his earlier themes of family and connection. Four of the fourteen have already appeared in The New Yorker. Each shines as an individual piece, yet often the stories loop back to another story's characters.
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wednesday december 13
Doesn't the title Delilah's Everyday Soul: Southern Cooking with Style just get your mouth and mind hungry? Delilah Winder is famous as the cook whose macaroni and cheese was pronounced the best in America by no less than Oprah herself (and, yes, the recipe is included here) and this is her first cookbook.
Winder owns restaurants in Philadelphia where she was born and bred but spent her summers with her grandparents in Virginia, creating an interesting food culture of urban sophistication combined with the best of country cooking. Her book reflects the traditions of both and is a handsome addition to anyone's culinary collection.
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monday october 16
For his first three years in high school, my son took what we used to call "business math" and made C's. Now, through a scheduling snafu, he is taking AP calculus. He is still making C's, but they are a much higher level of C's, presumably.
I'm not sure about the connection between this little anecdote (which admittedly would be more inspirational if he were now making A's) and Joe Miller's wonderful Cross-X, a book about a high school debating team at an inner-city school in Kansas City, Missouri, where almost everyone, including the debators, has academic deficiencies. Nevertheless, the debating team is consistently ranked one of the top high-school teams in the country. I think the connection is that if expectations are high, people will rise to them.
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wednesday august 16
I noticed in the newspaper the other day, the Gee's Bend quilts are going to be on display in Indianapolis starting in October of this year. The Gee's Bend exhibition has brought a spotlight onto African American quilting in the United States like never before. These beautiful abstract quilts have been traveling the country for almost four years now, garnering critical acclaim and generating amazing public discussion. The book, The Quilts of Gee's Bend, is a gorgeous view of the quilts and their makers.
I have a particular respect for African American quilting because it was an African American quilter's work that really got me interested in quilts as art. Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold was a major inspiration to me. It's a children's book, but I was already halfway grown when it came out. Still, the idea of telling a story through a quilt snagged me. Ringgold's work is so visually rich, it's hard not to be captivated. For a more adult take on her, as well as a lot more examples of her work, try Dancing at the Louvre.
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wednesday august 09
Sylvia Woods is the self-styled Queen of Soul Food. You've seen her face on cans in the supermarket or maybe you've eaten at her restaurant in Harlem. Her grandson Lindsey Williams grew up working in the family business and eating his grandma's fabulous cooking. But Lindsey had a problem. He kept getting bigger and bigger to the point his health was endangered.
Finally, Lindsey found a new way of cooking and eating and dropped over two hundred pounds. Neo Soul: Taking Soul Food to a Whole 'Nutha Level is how he transformed his family's recipes and food traditions into a healthy, yet flavorful and appealing cuisine.
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tuesday august 01
In 2001, Alice Randall broke into the literary scene with The Wind Done Gone, her scathing retelling of Gone With the Wind from the viewpoint of Scarlett O'Hara's slaves. Margaret Mitchell's estate sued Randall, claiming she appropriated Mitchell's characers and settings. Randall countered that she had written a parody of the book and the case was settled out of court.
Pushkin and the Queen of Spades is a contemporary look at some of the same themes of family, race and sexual politics that Randall described in her earlier novel as Russian literature professor Windsor Armstrong ponders how she will reveal to her son, Pushkin X, the identity of his father.
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friday july 28
If you haven’t seen Making a Legacy, Living the Legacy at the Cincinnati Art Museum, this weekend is your last chance!
Sunday is the final day for this exhibition of the work of five African American artists from the tri-state area, each using a different medium. The result is a very rich show – Joyce Young paintings, Melvin Grier photographs, Carolyn Mazloomi quilts, Ellen Price prints, and a Thom Phelps installation. Making a Legacy was mounted by guest curator Thom Shaw, another local African American artist.
More of Grier’s photographs and an interview with him can be seen in the video Bearing Witness: Melvin Grier. Prints by Shaw and Price are included in Cincinnati Portfolio III: A Porfolio of Ten Prints. And be sure to explore the beautiful work in Mazloomi’s book Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts.
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It is hard enough in today's world to find someone to love, but when you cross racial lines, there are additional issues and problems. Will your family reject you and your mate, will friends disappear, will strangers stare and judge you? How will this affect your children together? Just what is it that attracts you to the mate that you choose? Kalina M. Craig-Henderson's book, Black Men in Interracial Relationships: What's Love Got to do with It , addresses these issues and more from the viewpoint of black men. She interviewed 25 black men in depth to find out why they entered into interracial relationships. What she found is that love comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Sometimes you just love someone in spite of all the issues.
If you would like to read other opinions on the subject, check out these titles
thursday july 27
African-American science fiction author
Steven Barnes has a new book,
Great Sky Woman, a compelling epic of human prehistory filled with fascinating anthropological speculation. Forty thousand years ago, at the foot of the Great Sky Mountain (Mount Kilimanjaro), the Ibandi people live as peaceful hunter-gatherers. His story concerns the maturation of two Ibandi children linked by destiny: Frog Hopping, a boy with prescient ability raised to be a hunter; and T'Cori, a girl fostered by a medicine woman and reared as an apprentice.
The Ibandi are attacked suddenly by the Mt*tk, a savage warrior tribe from the south, who conquer and enslave them. Frog Hopping and T'Cori undertake a journey up Great Sky Mountain to beseech Father Sky to save their people.
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saturday july 15
I just finished Magic Street by Orson Scott Card. In it, Mack Street, a baby found abandoned in a shopping bag grows up and into magical abilities. His ability to see people's most wished-for dreams has a dark aspect however, as these dreams tend to be fulfilled in ways that harm the dreamer or his loved ones.
As Mack discovers more about the peculiarity of his birth, he also finds a house which is a gateway into another world. There he meets Puck and Titania (yes, this book draws heavily from A Midsummer Night's Dream) and discovers how his fate and the fate of the community he lives in depend on how he manages this interaction with Fairy.
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