Tag: African-Americans

Book Review: Autobiography of My Dead Brother by Walter Dean Myers

Amazon.com: Autobiography of My Dead Brother (9780060582937): Myers, Walter Dean, Myers, Christopher: Books

Title: Autobiography of My Dead Brother

Author: Walter Dean Myers

Illustrator: Christopher Myers

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Number of Pages: 224

Rating: B

Recommended?: Yes

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Book Review: Vive La Paris by Esme Raji Codell

Vive La Paris: Esme Raji Codell: 9780786851249: Amazon.com: Books

Title: Vive La Paris

Author: Esme Raji Codell

Genre: Realistic Middle Grade Fiction

Number of Pages: 224

Rating: D

Recommended?: No

Don’t let the beautiful cover art fool you. This book sucks hard. I enjoyed Sahara Special, the companion to this book, but this one practically ruined it for me. Read with caution because there are some serious spoilers ahead.

Vive La Paris is about a little girl named Paris with a houseful of brothers and a somewhat unusual family. She’s a classmate of Sahara, the girl with learning disabilities from the previous book. At the beginning of the book Paris starts going to piano lessons with Mrs. Rose, an eccentric Jewish woman with a blunt way about her. At first Paris doesn’t like Mrs. Rose’s forward way of giving her unsolicited advice but they eventually begin to bond.

One of Paris’ brothers is a goody-goody type who is having the absolute shit kicked out of him by a girl at his school. Because of the stigma of his abuser being a girl and his subservient nature, he not only doesn’t do anything to fight back but also makes moral justifications for the girl because she’s troubled. At the end it turns out the girl bully has a brother dying of a terminal illness and Paris’ brother actually criticizes her for being so selfish and callous she wouldn’t immediately forgive the person who is leaving bruises all over her brother’s body.

After the girl’s brother dies they end up being good friends because Paris’ brother allowed himself to be a punching bag for an angry person seeking a victim. Meanwhile it turns out that Mrs. Rose is a Holocaust survivor and for some reason she gives Paris a Star of David that is of enormous meaning and importance to her.

Paris has no idea what the Holocaust is and she thinks it’s so cool that the star becomes trendy among her classmates and they write numbers on their arms and shit. At this point I thought the author was just being insulting because not a single one of these kids has any idea what the Holocaust was and they need to have a stern talking-to from a teacher about how the systematic extermination of millions of people is no joking matter.

Paris feels bad and learns some important life lessons about not trivializing mass murder and how being angry towards people who beat the crap out of her brother makes her a selfish person. The ending throws in Mrs. Rosen’s untimely death because she’s a mentor character so the author needed to throw some good tearjerker moments into the last chapter or so. I thought this book had potential because I liked the idea of Paris’ character and I enjoyed her narrative verse, but the storyline and the messages the author seemed like she was trying to send were appallingly tone-deaf and disappointing.

Book Review: Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare

Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare: 9780679734819 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Title: Six Degrees of Seperation

Author: John Guare

Genre: Plays

Number of Pages: 120

Rating: B

Recommended?: Yes

I’ve never seen the film adaptation of this starring Will Smith, but after reading the play it’s definitely something I’d like to check out in the future. Six Degrees of Separation is an odd play about class and privilege, with an unsettling tone and very unlikable characters. It starts out with a young gay black man who’s an extremely skilled con artist insinuating himself in the lives of a rich white couple, and how his deceit and people’s reactions to his behavior set off a chain of peculiar events.

The young grifter, Paul, preys on his entitled victims’ racially biased perceptions of the ‘well-spoken educated black man’ and something about his ruthless opportunism appeals to them and arouses their sympathies even as he callously ruins lives. The nature of this play is misanthropic and somewhat satiric, and it’s strength lies in character motives that are both perplexing and often fascinating.

Book Review: Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson | Scholastic

Title: Locomotion

Author: Jacqueline Woodson

Genre: Middle Grade/Books in Verse

Number of Pages: 112

Rating: B

Recommended?: Yes

I read most of this book years ago (when I was an actual kid) and even though I liked it, it took me ages to go back to it and read it all the way through. Jacqueline Woodson can be a bit hit-or-miss for me, but this was one of the books by her I actually really like and I’d also recommend the sequel. Locomotion is a really quick read that revolves around Lonnie, a little boy who went into the foster care system after his parents died in a fire. He ends up being adopted by someone who loves him, but he ends up separated from his beloved younger sister in the process when she goes to a different foster family that doesn’t accept boys.

Lonnie has several positive friendships with his peers, but he’s often lonely and his love of poetry is something his most boys his age can’t relate to. Locomotion is told in a lyrical and intimate style that still feels appropriate to the character’s young age, and Lonnie is a sensitive, thoughtful character who’s a good role model and provides a engrossing portrayal of someone falling in love with the creative process and dealing with life events that are sometimes traumatic and difficult, but never devoid of hope.