February reading roundup #2

Hello, friends. I am back from a much-needed midwinter jaunt to San Diego, and (I think) finally over the jet lag. Here’s what I have been reading:

Learning America: One Woman’s Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children, Luma Mufleh
After surviving serious trauma, young refugees often struggle academically in settings that don’t meet their needs. Mufleh–herself a refugee from Jordan–began coaching refugee children in soccer and ended up founding a school, Fugees Academy, aimed at helping them succeed. A powerful, well-told story – a testament both to Mufleh’s dedication and the serious limits of the U.S. educational system. To review for Shelf Awareness (out April 5).

The Month of Borrowed Dreams, Felicity Hayes-McCoy
I love this sweet series set in western Ireland. This entry follows librarian Hanna Casey’s attempts to start a film club; the romantic trials of her daughter Jazz; and other familiar characters who are dealing with their own troubles. Bookish and lovely.

The Printed Letter Bookshop, Katherine Reay
I like Reay’s gentle novels about people finding their way. This one, set in a bookshop just outside Chicago, features three women all grappling with life changes and mourning the death of Maddie, the bookshop’s owner. Compelling and thoughtful, with insights about taking responsibility for your own actions. Found at the wonderful Verbatim Books in San Diego.

Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller, Nadia Wassef
When Wassef and her two business partners founded Diwan, Egypt’s first modern bookstore, they didn’t know the scale of what they were tackling. I loved this frank, wry memoir of trying to balance work and motherhood, taking on Egyptian bureaucracy, navigating tricky work relationships and championing books. Found at the marvelous Book Catapult in San Diego.

Small Marvels, Scott Russell Sanders
I heard Sanders speak years ago at the Glen Workshop and have enjoyed his wise, thought-provoking essays. This novel-in-stories follows Gordon Mills, a city maintenance worker in small-town Indiana, and his rambunctious family. Joyful, whimsical and lovely. To review for Shelf Awareness (out June 1).

Knitlandia: A Knitter Sees the World, Clara Parkes
Parkes is famous for writing about yarn, and this memoir traces (some of) her travels to yarn festivals, conferences, filming sites, etc. An entertaining collection of reminiscences about the wonderful world of knitting. Also found at Verbatim.

Dear White Peacemakers: Dismantling Racism with Grit and Grace, Osheta Moore
Moore is a voice for peace and justice on Instagram and elsewhere. This, her second book, speaks directly to white folks who want – or think we want – to engage in racial justice work. Thought-provoking and humbling; she is kind but pulls no punches.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

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February reading roundup #1

I know we’re only a week into February, but I’ve already read a slew of great books (including on a snow day and a cross-country flight). Here’s what I have been reading:

Love, Lists and Fancy Ships, Sarah Grunder Ruiz
Jo Walker, yacht stewardess, has struggled to keep going since the death of her young nephew. But the surprise arrival of her two teenage nieces for the summer – plus a kind, handsome new neighbor/coworker and his daughter – forces her to get out and knock a few items off her 30-before-30 bucket list. Loved this funny, sweet novel.

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, Ingrid Fetell Lee
We tend to think of joy as an intangible, elusive emotion – but it can be enhanced, even engendered, by physical objects and patterns in the physical world. A fun, informative look at 10 different aesthetics of joy – natural and human-made. Recommended by Anne and others.

Some of It Was Real, Nan Fischer
Sylvie is a psychic on the brink of stardom who isn’t quite sure she believes in her own abilities. Thomas is a journalist who’s determined to expose her as a fraud. As they go on a road trip to delve into Sylvie’s past, they both are forced to examine some serious grief and other emotions, including how they feel about each other. To review for Shelf Awareness (out July 22).

The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane, Kate O’Shaughnessy
Maybelle Lane dreams of a singing career – and when she finds out the daddy she’s never met is judging a singing contest, she schemes her way to Nashville, in the company of a no-nonsense neighbor woman and her maybe-friend, the boy next door. A sweet middle-grade story about loneliness and how you choose to build a family.

Just the Two of Us, Jo Wilde
Julie and Michael have been married for nearly 35 years – but their relationship has gone seriously sour. When they’re forced to isolate together in their home in March 2020, they start to wonder if they can find their way back to each other. I wasn’t sure I was ready for a “light” pandemic novel, but this was a lovely exploration of family and the ups and downs of a long marriage. To review for Shelf Awareness (out April 12).

Shoutin’ in the Fire, Dante Stewart
I follow Stewart on Twitter and Instagram – he writes powerfully about being Black, Christian and American. This memoir delves deeper into his own experiences and how he has grappled with anti-Blackness in various contexts (including in himself). He’s a force and this is a message we all need.

The Wicked Widow, Beatriz Williams
I love Williams’ lush, compelling historical fiction. This novel is the third featuring Geneva “Gin” Kelly, a scrappy redhead who gets caught up with a major bootlegging racket during Prohibition, and her connection to the blue-blooded Schuyler family. Heartbreaking and juicy and so good.

A Place to Hang the Moon, Kate Albus
William always tells his younger siblings that their mum thought they “hung the moon.” But when the children – long since orphaned – are forced to evacuate during World War II, clinging to those memories becomes tougher. A sweet (if often sad) story about family, love and the power of good stories.

Every Living Thing, James Herriot
It’s no secret I love Herriot’s books and the new PBS adaptation based closely on them. I found this later volume at the wonderful Dogtown Books in Gloucester (a happy surprise!) and have been savoring it slowly. Funny and vivid and comforting.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

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why we’re still riding

Last Saturday, I took my bike down to Franklin Park for the Ride for Black Lives. Since last summer, a group of us have been meeting there for monthly protest rides through the streets of Boston. The rides began in the wake of George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s deaths, and they have continued (with a winter hiatus) as the racial conversations in this country have shifted, quieted and occasionally flared up again.

This month’s ride drew a much smaller crowd: a few dozen instead of the several hundred we often had last summer. It was a hot day, and there were several other events happening at the same time; people are also taking vacations while they can. More worryingly, it seems some folks have simply moved on from wanting to talk or hear (or ride) about racial justice. (Though I know showing up to an event is far from the only way to participate.)

I often wonder if what we’re doing matters: if a bike ride (or five) will make any difference in the struggle for racial equality. For me personally, it’s often important and moving to show up and hear Black people share their experiences, but these rides are absolutely not about me. My partner is on the organizing committee, so of course I show up for him, too. But sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. If what we do matters at all.

Last week, our speakers were several young people who have worked with Bikes Not Bombs, which (among other things) trains young people in bike mechanics and leadership skills. I was astounded by their bravery in sharing with us, and their vulnerability in admitting how hard life can be when you’re a Black teenager. Their stories (and one poem) reminded me: we are riding because their lives, and other Black lives, matter.

One of the speakers talked about his experience in mostly white schools, how there are so many spaces where he doesn’t feel he can be himself. Another one said simply that his experience is probably “typical” for a Black teenager, and listed a few of the slights he’s received. And another read a poem called “Can You Hear Me?”, a river of spoken word urging us – the adults in the room – to listen to the teenagers we often overlook.

We ride – I was reminded – for them. For the students who spoke and the students we serve at ZUMIX, where I work, and my partner’s son, who leaves for college this week. We ride, and continue the conversation, so that these young people can be their full selves in a country that is theirs as much as it is mine. We are thinking about how to expand our work, starting with a backpack and school supply drive. (We would love your support, if you’re able.) We keep showing up because no matter what the headlines say, it is unjustly hard to be a Black person in this country, and that should change.

I have more of a personal stake in this than ever before: loving a Black man makes a difference, even when you already believe in justice and equality in the abstract. I am proud to stand beside my guy and the others who make these rides happen. I am humbled and honored to fight alongside them. And I – we – will keep doing the work. Which includes, but is in no way limited to, these rides.

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October reading roundup #1

We’re halfway through October, and while I’ve been running (and writing about running), I’ve also been reading. Here’s the latest roundup:

Total Recall, Sara Paretsky
V.I. Warshawski’s 10th adventure finds her investigating a man who says he’s a Holocaust survivor. Worried by the man’s behavior and its distressing effect on her friends Max and Lotty, V.I. tries to figure out if he’s legit. This one dragged a bit, though the historical angle was interesting.

The Secrets of Bones, Kylie Logan
Cadaver dog trainer and admin assistant Jazz Ramsey is stunned when one of her demonstrations turns up a real body. She begins investigating the skeleton, which may belong to a former colleague. This was an engaging enough mystery plot, but not as good as Jazz’s previous adventure.

The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found, Karina Yan Glaser
It’s fall in Harlem and the Vanderbeeker kids are caught off guard when the mysterious person sleeping in the garden shed turns out to be a friend of theirs. I love this series; this installment is sweet and funny, and a thoughtful take on a complicated situation faced by a lot of children. (I scored some fun swag since I pre-ordered my copy from NYC’s Books of Wonder. Support indie bookstores!)

Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Julie Andrews with Emma Walton Hamilton
I’ve loved Julie Andrews’ work since I was a little girl; The Sound of Music is one of my all-time faves. This memoir covers Andrews’ early years in Hollywood (including Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music) and her next two decades in film, plus her marriage to brilliant, mercurial director Blake Edwards. Warm, charming and really fun for Andrews fans.

Poppy Redfern and the Fatal Flyers, Tessa Arlen
Aspiring screenwriter Poppy Redfern is sent to an airfield to interview several “Attagirls” – female pilots. But when two of the squad’s most experienced members die in crashes, Poppy and her American beau, Griff, suspect foul play. I love a British mystery and this one was really fun. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Dec. 1).

West Wind, Mary Oliver
It’s no secret I’m an Oliver fan, and these poems/prose poems are lovely and luminous and tinged with melancholy. I especially love “Morning Walk” and the last one, “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches.”

How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
This is definitely one of the books of 2020 – I’ve been working on it for two months. Kendi shares his own story of coming to grips with his internalized anti-Black racism, along with defining and exploring terms like assimilationist, segregationist, etc. It gets dense at times, but is strong and thought-provoking. It’s increasingly clear to me that racism goes far beyond overt harmful acts, and it’s up to all of us to reckon with that.

The Last Mrs. Summers, Rhys Bowen
Newlywed Lady Georgiana O’Mara (nee Rannoch) is at a loose end when her husband is traveling. But her best friend Belinda turns up and they take off down to Cornwall together, to look at a property Belinda has inherited. Before long, they find themselves staying at the local great house and caught up in a murder mystery. A fun homage to Rebecca and an engaging entry in this series.

The Precious One, Marisa de los Santos
I love de los Santos’ warm, thought-provoking novels about family, and I loved revisiting this one. It is the story of Taisy and Willow, estranged sisters who finally discover each other (and themselves), but it’s about more than that: love and second chances and the stories we tell about our lives. So good.

Links (not affiliate links) are to local bookstores I love: Trident, Frugal Bookstore and Brookline Booksmith.

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walking Boston’s Black Heritage Trail

This is the summer, as I said recently, of antiracist reading (along with sunflowers and bike rides and strawberries). On a recent Monday afternoon, a friend and I decided to explore with both our feet and our brains: we met up in Beacon Hill to walk the Boston Black Heritage Trail.

I’ve lived in Boston for a decade now, and I used to wander Beacon Hill frequently when I worked at Emerson College. But I didn’t know this trail existed until recently, and the more sites we found and the more snippets I read aloud from the National Park Service website, I wondered: why not?

Like many American schoolchildren, I learned certain parts of Boston history: Paul Revere’s famous ride, the Boston Tea Party. I walked most of the Freedom Trail as a newcomer to Boston, ten years ago. I knew Boston was a center for the abolitionist movement (though it is also persistently racist). But I didn’t know about so many of the folks we learned about on the Black Heritage Trail: their names or their occupations or their contributions to the ongoing fight for Black freedom.

The trail comprises about a dozen sites, starting at the memorial to the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, a volunteer infantry regiment made up of Black soldiers (made famous in the movie Glory). The memorial itself is closed for restoration right now, but there’s a great temporary exhibition wrapped around the fencing, so you can still learn about the soldiers of the 54th.

Most of the trail’s other sites are former homes of Black people who fought for the abolition of slavery, helped house people escaping enslavement, helped integrate schools and churches in Boston, and played other important roles in Black community life. There are two former schools along the trail: the Abiel Smith School, the first Black public school in Boston, and the Phillips School, which became one of Boston’s first integrated schools.

The trail ends at the Smith Court Residences and the African Meeting House (now the Museum of African American History), which seem to have been the epicenter of Black life in Boston in the late 19th century. But even as we walked, we saw plaques on other buildings noting people who had lived and worked for abolition and Black rights in the neighborhood.

I might never have seen these plaques, or any of these houses, if I hadn’t been looking for them – and I kept wondering: why not? Why aren’t we taught these stories, alongside those of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams and John Hancock? Why had I never heard of Lewis and Harriet Hayden or George Middleton or Elizabeth Smith? I want to find out more about them now – but their stories should not be tucked down a side street. They should be highlighted, celebrated.

So much of the work of adulthood, for me, is paying attention: noticing the details of each day, really listening to my loved ones when we’re talking, not simply scrolling or sleepwalking through this life. The work of anti-racism also involves paying attention: seeking out the stories we don’t know, the ones that have been ignored or erased or shunted aside. This walk, this trail, is a small beginning. I’m glad we went, and I’m committed to finding out more.

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Revisiting the Logans

My antiracist reading list this summer includes some of the usual suspects (White Fragility and How to Be an Antiracist, among others). But just as crucially, I’ve been spending time with Mildred D. Taylor’s Logan family.

Outspoken, whip-smart Cassie Logan entered my life in the fourth grade, when I first discovered her story in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Unusually for Depression-era Mississippi, Cassie’s tightly knit Black family owned their land, and the book tells of a year when they fought to keep it. I adore Cassie and her brothers, their no-nonsense grandma and their wise, thoughtful parents. I remember extensive classroom discussions about racism, and it was also important for me to encounter a Black protagonist who was not a slave.

Back then, I also read and loved Taylor’s powerful sequel, Let the Circle Be Unbroken. I’ve reread both books this summer, and they are as rich and compelling now as they were 25 years ago. But there’s more to their story, and I’ve been relishing and learning from the new-to-me chapters of the Logan family saga.

Taylor’s 2001 prequel, The Land, chronicles the childhood of Cassie’s biracial grandfather, Paul-Edward Logan, and his quest to acquire his own land. Born to a plantation owner and a slave woman, Paul-Edward has to reckon with his heritage and make his own way, and he does both with strength and spirit. I also picked up The Road to Memphis, which follows the teenage Cassie, her brother Stacey and several friends as they spirit a friend out of town after a racially charged altercation with three white men. (Bonus: the reissued paperbacks feature covers by 2020 Caldecott Medalist Kadir Nelson, who recently illustrated a New Yorker cover featuring George Floyd.)

Taylor’s concluding Logan novel, All the Days Past, All the Days to Come, picks up Cassie’s story in adulthood. She travels the country as part of the postwar Great Migration, finds both love and grief in California, and goes back home to Mississippi to participate in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Taylor returns to her perennial themes of justice, equality, fierce pride and the Logans’ deep love for their land and one another. Their strength and dignity in the face of discrimination are a potent reminder that Black people have suffered long enough: it’s time for white Americans to do better.

I originally wrote most of this column for Shelf Awareness, where it ran last week. I love the Logans and I highly recommend these books for older kids and adults alike. 

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July reading roundup #1

I’ve been reading up a storm this month, so far. Here’s the latest roundup:

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
I loved Emily Nagoski’s previous book, Come As You Are, a brilliant exploration of women’s sexuality. This book, co-written with Emily’s identical twin sister Amelia, explores the stress we experience as women, and shares strategies for naming and dealing with it. Witty, insightful and thought-provoking. I especially liked the parts about completing the stress cycle (so it doesn’t just build up in your body) and befriending your inner madwoman. Will be thinking about this one for a while.

The Women and the Men, Nikki Giovanni
I picked up this poetry collection at Manchester by the Book and have been reading it slowly. I find Giovanni’s work powerful and engaging – I love her imagery and the way she plays with language.

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations, Mira Jacob
I loved this wry, warmhearted, piercingly honest graphic memoir about what it means to live in the U.S. as a person of color, a woman, an artist and a part of an interracial family. Jacob is American-born to Indian parents; her husband is a white Jewish man. Their son, Z, is funny and smart and asks really good questions. This memoir chronicles many of their conversations as well as Jacob’s personal history. Fantastic.

Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America, Angie Schmitt
Pedestrians are dying in the U.S. at a truly alarming rate – especially older folks, disabled people and people of color. Schmitt delves into the urban planning, car design and systemic inequalities that created this epidemic, and offers some solutions for reversing it. Incisive, accessible and thought-provoking. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Aug. 27).

Float Plan, Trish Doller
Ben and Anna had planned to sail the Caribbean together, until Ben’s death by suicide. But Anna, in a desperate attempt to move forward somehow, decides to take their boat and sail anyway. She meets Keane, a handsome Irishman, and still has to deal with her grief. Funny, sweet and romantic. To review for Shelf Awareness (out March 2021).

The Road to Memphis, Mildred D. Taylor
Cassie Logan and her friends all know to keep their cool around white people – but one day her friend Moe has had enough and severely injures three white men. Cassie, her brother Stacey and two of their friends flee town with Moe, hoping to get him to Memphis so he can head north. A powerful installment in Taylor’s Logan series.

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come, Mildred D. Taylor
This book picks up Cassie’s story in the 1940s, when she’s a young woman and her brothers are also reaching adulthood. It spans two decades, as Cassie moves from Mississippi to Toledo to California and finally back south, to participate in voter registration drives. I love Cassie’s honesty, her stubborn sense of justice and her warm, fiercely loving family. I wanted her adventures to go on and on.

Yes No Maybe So, Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed
Jamie Goldberg gets roped into political canvassing by his cousin, the campaign manager. Maya Rehman is missing her best friend, her parents are separating, and she grudgingly agrees to canvass with Jamie. To both their surprise, the work isn’t that bad – and they like each other’s company, too. A sweet, funny YA romance about dealing with big change and standing up for what’s right.

Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God, Kaitlin B. Curtice
Curtice is a Potawatomi woman who is also a Christian, and she explores that tension in this book. It’s beautifully written, and at times it’s clear and powerful. At times it didn’t quite land for me. Still important, as we continue to face tough, long-overdue conversations about race and discrimination.

Watson & Holmes: A Study in Black, Karl Bollers, Rick Leonardi & Larry Stroman
My guy lent me this graphic-novel reimagining of Watson and Holmes as black men fighting crime in 21st-century NYC. I’m not a huge comics reader but I liked their witty banter. It amazes me how Conan Doyle’s characters are endlessly being reinterpreted.

The Fountains of Silence, Ruta Sepetys
I love Sepetys’ gripping YA novels about largely forgotten corners of history. This one explores the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and the effects of Franco’s regime on young people in the 1950s. I loved the two main characters: Daniel, a visiting Texan who is half Spanish, and Ana, who works as a maid at his hotel. Compelling, lushly described and very romantic.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to local bookstores I love: Trident and Brookline Booksmith.

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June reading roundup #2

We are nearly through June – which has felt endless – and I’ve been reading a lot. Here’s the latest roundup. (Photo from Manchester by the Book, where I popped in for a properly masked/distanced browse with a girlfriend recently. It was so nourishing to be in a real bookstore again.)

I’m Fine and Neither Are You, Camille Pagán
Penelope Ruiz-Kar loves her husband and kids, but she’s exhausted from juggling it all, and secretly envious of her put-together best friend Jenny. When tragedy strikes, Penelope is forced to examine her misconceptions about Jenny’s life, and take a hard look at her own. Funny and breezy with surprising depth – Pagán does that combination so well.

Two Truths and a Lie, Meg Mitchell Moore
When Sherri Griffin and her daughter arrive in Newburyport, Mass., they’re running from more than just a “bad divorce.” The local Mom Squad is curious, but it’s the former squad queen, Rebecca, who actually connects with Sherri. Recently widowed, Rebecca has struggles and secrets of her own, and so does her teenage daughter. Fast-paced and compelling, full of summer sunsets, compassion and snark.

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, Jeanne Birdsall
It’s summer in New England and the Penderwick sisters (with their widowed father and big dog, Hound) are staying at a lovely estate in the Berkshires. All sorts of adventures ensue, as they make friends with the resident boy, try to dodge his snooty mother, and do their best to take care of each other. This series is a little bit precious, but the characters are so much fun.

The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo
I loved Acevedo’s second novel, With the Fire on High, and finally picked up her debut novel-in-verse. Xiomara Batista is a Dominican-American teenager living in Harlem. She has lots of questions about God, boys and life (and her strict Catholic mami doesn’t want to hear them). She starts writing poetry, then gets invited to join her school’s slam poetry club. I loved reading Xiomara’s powerful, honest, fiery words, and seeing how she cares for her twin brother and friends.

Blanche Among the Talented Tenth, Barbara Neely
I read about Neely in a recent Shelf Awareness obituary, and picked up her second mystery (for $3!) at Manchester by the Book. (Serendipity!) Blanche White is a domestic worker who’s spending a well-earned vacation at an all-black resort in Maine. Two dead bodies turn up, and she gets mixed up in a nest of secrets, while dealing with tricky interpersonal dynamics. A well-plotted mystery and an incisive look at colorism in the black community.

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, Jeanne Birdsall
The Penderwick girls are back at home, dealing with school, sports, new neighbors and – to their chagrin – their father’s attempts at dating. This sequel is sweet and funny, and I love the ending.

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine, Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite
When Alaine Beauparlant’s journalist mother makes a scene on the air, and Alaine herself gives a disastrous school presentation, they both end up back in Haiti with Alaine’s aunt Estelle. Alaine is a sassy, snappy narrator who’s trying to figure out some family business (a curse?) while working for her aunt’s nonprofit (where something definitely smells fishy). This epistolary YA novel, written by two sisters, was so much fun.

Atomic Love, Jennie Fields
Rosalind Porter enjoyed success as a scientist, working on nuclear projects during World War II. But she’s haunted by the destruction caused by the atomic bomb. When her British ex-lover turns back up, so does the FBI: they think he might be selling secrets to the Russians. Rosalind walks a fine line as she tries to help the FBI and protect her own heart. A compelling, twisty story of love, science and conflicting loyalties. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Aug. 18).

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred D. Taylor
I read this book back in fourth grade and it has stayed with me all these years. It’s the centerpiece of Taylor’s family saga about the Logans, a black landowning family in Depression-era Mississippi. Narrated by Cassie, age nine, this book tells the story of one year when racial tensions erupt, with disastrous consequences, but it’s also a story of love and strength. I adore Cassie – opinionated, headstrong, with a firm sense of justice – and Taylor’s writing is so powerful.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo
This book is everywhere right now, and for good reason: so many of us white folks are waking up to conversations about race. DiAngelo (who is white, and has been doing inclusion/antiracism work for years) pulls no punches in her examination of white supremacy as a system, the ways it shapes all of us, and how we can begin to interrupt that system. Powerful and thought-provoking.

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall
It’s summer and the three younger Penderwick girls are off to Maine with Aunt Claire. Before long, their friend Jeffrey turns up too, and all sorts of adventures ensue while Skye tries to wrap her head around being in charge. Sweet and funny, like its predecessors.

Why I Wake Early, Mary Oliver
I love Oliver’s poetry and have been reading a few of these each morning. Her luminous imagery is helping me to pay attention in these strange days.

Let the Circle Be Unbroken, Mildred D. Taylor
Taylor’s sequel to Roll of Thunder (above) picks up the adventures of the Logan family in the 1930s. A friend of theirs stands trial for robbery and murder; their biracial cousin comes to visit and tries to pass as white; and Cassie and her siblings continue learning what it means to be black in America. So compelling and vivid.

The Penderwicks in Spring, Jeanne Birdsall
The Penderwicks are back, and Batty is finding her singing voice, starting a dog-walking business, and dealing with some really tough emotional stuff. Some sad parts in this one, but I love Birdsall’s fictional family.

The Penderwicks at Last, Jeanne Birdsall
Rosalind is getting married – and all the Penderwicks are back at Arundel, the estate where the series began. Eleven-year-old Lydia takes center stage in this last book, and it’s so much fun.

A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside, Susan Branch
My friend Kate sent me this book months ago, and I’ve been dipping into its pages at night when life feels too hard. Branch and her husband, Joe, sail on the Queen Mary 2 for an extended tour of charming English villages, and her illustrated travelogue is cozy and sweet.

Links (not affiliate links) are to local bookstores I love: Trident, Brookline Booksmith and Frugal Books.

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It starts with naming.

Like millions of Americans, I’ve spent the past few weeks doing a lot of reading, listening and processing. The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, the ensuing protests, and the waves of activism and helpful resources popping up everywhere have all been rightfully demanding my attention.

I’m a few chapters into White Fragility (“like all the other white people,” my friend Ally joked last week). I’m listening to podcast interviews with Black leaders, finding Black-owned businesses to support and following new-to-me accounts on Instagram run by Black folks. (One of my favorites: Black Librarians, which highlights – what else? – Black librarians doing excellent work in their field.)

It’s tempting to think that is enough: that exposing myself to new ideas, information and voices will root out my own biases. It will help, of course, but it is not nearly enough. I keep thinking, too, about a poem I found back in early 2016: Veronica Patterson’s “A Charm Against the Language of Politics.”

Patterson’s poem begins:

Say over and over the names of things,
the clean nouns: weeping birch, bloodstone, tanager,
Banshee damask rose.

Patterson’s poem talks about pleasant things, beautiful things: spiderwebs, apples, okra, calendula. Racism and violence are not nearly as appealing, but they are real, and we have to stop ignoring them.

If we are to face racism and work to end it, we must name it, and that means naming a host of other things: specific laws and policies that discriminate against Black people; instances of violence and murder (historical and present-day); our own sometimes-hidden biases against (various) people who do not look like us. It also means, for me, naming my own whiteness, and working to understand how it has shaped me.

In conversations with friends and family, I am trying to stop vaguely referring to “everything that’s going on.” If I mean my ongoing anxieties about the coronavirus pandemic and states reopening, I say that. If I mean the sadness, outrage and drinking-from-a-firehose overwhelm of trying to process all this new information about race and racism, I say that. Sometimes I think about Albus Dumbledore, gravely reminding Harry, “Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

I was taught to ignore or sidestep race, especially the racial identities of brown and black people, and thus to ignore racism (or insist that it had been solved). But we cannot hope to solve a problem we don’t name. So, for me, it starts (in part) with naming.

Where are you finding yourselves these days, in the work of acknowledging and working to end racism in the U.S.? I’m still overwhelmed (and ashamed at how long it’s taking me to catch up), but I’m here for the work. Let’s learn together.

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an anti-racist reading list.

I posted this book stack the other day on Instagram – it was/is the result of a quick scan of my shelves, pulling off books by black authors that have been (for me) powerful and thought-provoking. Some are longtime favorites, some newer discoveries.

Like any book list, it is only a small beginning. I am reading and listening to black voices on social media: Osheta Moore, Austin Channing Brown, Well-Read Black Girl. I am ordering and placing library holds on books by black authors. I signed a NAACP petition calling for an independent investigation into the murder of George Floyd, and broader police reform. I donated to my local bail fund after more than 50 protesters were arrested this weekend in Boston.

None of this is “enough” or gets me off the hook for doing more. I share what I’ve been doing because so many of us white folks don’t know where to start. But we have to start, if we haven’t already. Until everyone is able to thrive in this country, the work will not be done. And we have to look hard at our own hearts – our biases and hesitation and fear – because the real work happens internally, too.

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