Uh-oh! Everybody’s watching. They’re all looking at you and now what? Your voice won’t work when all eyes are pointed your way. You can’t sing like that, can’t say your lines, so how can you play your part? You can barely even move when everybody’s watching, so try this: sleep on it. In the new book “Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie Starring Indigo Blume” by Kwame Alexander, pictures by Tim Bowers, that might work. As she helped clean up the park near her house, Indigo Blume was a happy girl. The Garden City Community Festival would be held soon and she…
Author: Terri Schlichenmeyer
You’ve got mail. No, real mail, delivered by a carrier in a mailbox outside your door. It doesn’t happen very often and it’s rarer if there’s a letter in those envelopes because everybody you know texts or emails and a hand-written, lick-the-envelope, put-a-stamp-on-it letter is so old-school. Who even writes letters anymore? Author Michael Eric Dyson, that’s who, and in “Long Time Coming,” you’ll want to read them. “Dear Elijah McClain…” he begins. When the grief of history is a part of a burden, the pain of now becomes keener and the action more urgent. “Black death” has been in…
You had every intention to stand still that night. Nice try. Your shoulders were shimmying ten seconds after you stepped to a beat, left foot, right foot, through a wall of thump that came from speakers taller than you. You stopped, and it was as if your behind had its own mind. In those days, you couldn’t stop dancing, and in “My Life In the Purple Kingdom” by BrownMark with Cynthia M. Uhrich, one man couldn’t stop guitaring. Before he was even old enough for school, Mark Brown decided that he wanted to be a guitar player some day. Growing…
It’s almost time for lights out. Just before that, though, you have a ritual: you wash your face, brush your teeth, put on your jammies, crawl into bed, and get a bedtime story. Then it’s lights out until morning but before your good-night kiss tonight, ask for one last thing. Ask for “Dark Was the Night” by Gary Golio, illustrated by E. B. Lewis. In a tiny Texas town in 1897, little Willie Johnson was born on a bright, sunny January day. Willie’s family didn’t have much money, and so when he was a small boy and his parents noticed…
Your birthday card had a Black History postage stamp on it. As always, it was from Grandma and though it’s kind of corny, you look forward to it ever year: a blue or red envelope outside, a sentimental saying with a few bucks tucked inside. Other than bills, ballots, and ads, she’s the only person you know who snail-mails anything, but in “Dear Justyce” by Nic Stone, help can be delivered, too. The first time Vernell LaQuan Banks ran away, he was nine years old. His mother’s new man had been beating her again and though Quan hated leaving his…
To relax, or not to relax? Why not? Whatever. Your hair has gone through several stages of change: you’ve braided, straightened, curled, permed, and loc’d, put it beneath a turban, a durag, scarves, wigs, and kangols. It’s been shaved, picked, plucked, pulled back, and done up. Therewere times when you fought your own hair, and you don’t want your children to go through that. So look for “Glory” by Kahran and Regis Bethencourt, and call the kids. As photographers, Kahran and Regis Bethencourts say that they consider themselves “cultural storytellers” who believe that Black culture has been “under-celebrated.” For far too…
Your favorite player loves getting buckets. And that’s good – that’s the goal of the game, after all, right? It’s called basketball because that’s what you’re supposed to do: put the ball in the basket, dunk it right in the bucket. You might need help to do that now, but practice, and maybe you’ll be a pro someday. Maybe you’ll be like the players in “Swish!” by Suzanne Slade, illustrated by Don Tate. Ka-thumpa, ka-thumpa, ka-thumpa. that’s what people heard all day, if they lived near Chicago’s South side. It was “those boys” and their basketballs, doing “nonstop layups, all-net…
You can’t stand to watch another happily-ever-after movie again. You’re done with all those romancy novels, tender songs of love, and dreams of flowers every Valentine’s Day. Statistically speaking – and being realistic – that stuff isn’t in the cards for you, and in “Black Women, Black Love” by Dianne M. Stewart, you’ll see how this might have happened. About a decade ago, the Census Bureau released a sobering fact: nearly three out of four Black women in America were not married. More than half of those women had never even been to the altar and, says Stewart, it wasn’t…
Save the Earth! You’d agree to that. Who doesn’t want to enjoy a bright, airy afternoon with cotton-ball clouds? Of course, you’d happily leave your grandchildren those shirt-sleeve kinds of days, thunderstorm evenings, clean air and water. That’s what you’d choose if you could –though, as you’ll see in “An Environmental History of the Civil War” by Judkin Browning & Timothy Silver, things weren’t always so sunny. In all the battles that occurred in the Civil War, just one campaign – the Mud March of January, 1863 – was named after the weather in which it happened. It was the…
“Excuse me. It’s my time to talk.” Ugh, it’s frustrating when someone doesn’t honor your voice or respect your ideas. When it’s your time to speak, they should at least be quiet, and you shouldn’t feel bad for wanting to be heard. Speak up! As in the new book “Reclaiming Her Time” by Helena Andrews-Dyer and R. Eric Thomas, one politician had no problem doing so. Born and raised in poverty, little Maxine Carr had one thing most kids in the 1930s and 40s didn’t have: she had the certainty that if she didn’t open her mouth to speak up,…