Category: In Reading Color

This is an interesting look at Korea during the Japanese occupation. It follows the lives of an unfortunate girl whose parents sold her to a brothel, and the poor son of a hunter, showing how their fates are intertwined. Jade, now living in a brothel, befriends JungHo, who is the leader of a group of homeless orphaned boys. As she matures, she comes into her own as a celebrated courtesan and curries favor with a man of noble birth. Her and some of the other girls she grew up with fall in and out of love with men from different social standings, as this novel takes us through mid-century Korean life.

Rejoice! For Amanda Gorman has released her poetry collection debut! We all know Gorman from the presidential inauguration, but here we can get to know her more through poems that tackle our current social issues without giving way to despair. She covers everything from the effects of environmental neglect from past generations, to the consequences of devaluing Black lives, to social isolation. She even mixes up the structure of how some poems are presented as some appear as whales, text bubbles, and other shapes on the page.

This is a collection of slice-of-life stories set in a small Japanese town with fabulist elements. The language is fittingly spare, managing a certain amount of unease as we’re taken through the town’s many oddities. There’s an elderly man who farms chickens and might go to chicken hell (lol), a bossy child who moves in with a woman that finds her under a white cloth, a schoolgirl who keeps doll brains in a drawer, and many other weird goings-on. The stories are odd and dark at times, but the collection overall still somehow manages to also be charming.

Here’s an excellent fake-dating trope for the holidays! Kenya — an anime, cosplaying, and gaming queen— enters into a cosplaying reality show competition. She’s made it to the last round, but hits a snag as it’s a couples challenge, and she’s… single as can be (it’s hard out here, sis!). She enlists the help of her bestie and roommate, Cam, who has secretly had a crush on here since forever. You know where this is going, and you know it’ll be fun to get there. Bonus points for a Black and fat main character who relishes in many nerdy fandoms. 💜

While making manifest her love for her future child, a mother gathers gifts—of sage and white feathers— to make a sacred bundle. I Sang You Down From the Stars is a beautifully illustrated children’s book that is as much an ode to the bond between mother and child as it is a tribute to Native American culture.

In the future The Marrow Thieves paints, white people are hunting down Native Americans to harvest them for their bone marrow. The marrow is thought to be the key to returning dreams to the dreamless in a world that has been ravaged by global warming and all its trappings. Now, people indigenous to North America live on the run in order to avoid becoming unwilling sacrifices to cure white people of their ills by way of being sent to “schools,” which are similar to the Indian schools that existed in North America. The schools in the book seek to extract a component essential to their living in the form of bone marrow, while the schools in real life were meant to harness another thing essential to them: their identity.

Adam Redhawk reenlists the investigator that helped him find his Cherokee family. The task Adam requires of Tess Lynch this time is to help him find exactly who seeks his business’s downfall. Tess, meanwhile, has stakes in this all her own, and is seeking revenge against his adoptive father. And, obviously, things get super steamy.

When we’re first introduced to Mailhot, she’s writing in the notebook given to her during her stay in a psychiatric hospital while being treated for PTSD and bipolar II disorder. Her words weave connecting threads through all facets of her life: her upbringing on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest, a teenage marriage and subsequent loss of custody of her first son, disastrous relationships with men, and traumatic memories and the imagination that tries to shield her from them. Mailhot’s writing is poetic, raw, urgent, and hums with the traditional storytelling of her mountain women ancestors. This short memoir packs a wallop, let me tell you.

Isolated from the outside world as a result of a winter storm, a small Anishinaabe community in the north starts to panic. Supplies diminish as leaders struggle to maintain order amidst the chaos. When someone new to town shows up unexpectedly, he is given shelter despite the community’s meager offerings. The man has come from south of the community where the world has been falling apart. Soon, more like him arrive and start to manipulate people’s emotions. In order to overcome this, some in the Anishinaabe community realize they must return to the old ways to confront present day issues.

The American justice systems isn’t exactly just. Neither is the tribal council, which is where Virgil Wounded Horse comes in. He’s an enforcer for the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and metes out retribution as he’s paid to. When his nephew becomes involved with the newly arrived heroin problem, Virgil sets out with his ex-girlfriend to put a stop to it. The investigation leads them to drug cartels, new tribal initiatives, and a realization Virgil has about his heritage and identity.

Hell of a Book juxtaposes the story of a Black author traveling across the country to promote his best-selling novel with that of a Black boy living in the past in a rural area. Then there’s also The Kid, who may be imaginary. The question of who was killed in a police shooting is raised by a news story that continuously runs on the matter, and all of the characters’ stories eventually converge in this novel on family, art, and tragedy.

I’ve seen the cotton bag this book is birthed from during one of my many trips to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C. Within this sack, given by an enslaved women to her nine-year old daughter before she was sent to the auction block, lies generations of Black women’s hopes, fears, and love for their daughters. After Rose passed it to her daughter Ashley in 1852 in South Carolina, it eventually wound up being in the hands of Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth, who embroidered it with its own history: “a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid of Roses hair;” “filled my Love always.” With All That She Carried, Miles breathes life into the countless untold stories of Black enslaved women throughout America’s history.

A young half Korean, half French woman is tending to the slightly unkempt guesthouse in Sokcho, Korea during the winter when a Frenchman comes in. She’s drawn to the middle-aged man who shares the same heritage as the father she never knew. It turns out he’s an internationally known cartoonist, and looking for inspiration in Sokcho’s drab winter climate. The two form a tentative relationship as she takes him around so that he many have an “authentic” Korean experience, hopefully finding inspiration along the way. The city comes alive as the story tells of the young woman’s daily life in vignettes, and avoids the cliché of the traveling European becoming a savior or lover to the intrigued young woman. Dusapin’s writing has been likened to Marguerite Duras.

The Red Scare that hung over America in 1954 threatens to take seventeen-year-old Lily Hu’s father from her, as well as many other people in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Just as this is happening, Lily is exploring a question she has been wondering about whether two girls can fall in love. She finds an answer in Kath, a white American girl, who she sneaks with to the Telegraph Club, a place for queer women to be themselves. The club is not without its flaws, though, as Lily experiences micro aggressions from some of the queer woman as a result of her Chinese heritage. Lo expertly examines the intersectional life of a nonwhite queer girl in this historical novel.

Espada draws from his experiences of being a lawyer, an activist, and a person of Puerto Rican descent and transmutes them into verse that explores the anti-immigration ideology as well as Latinx racism in Floaters. The titular poem, even, is an excellent example of the dehumanization that often takes place when immigrants are discussed, as it callously refers to migrants who drown trying to cross the border (specifically the Salvadoran father and daughter, Óscar and Valeria who drowned in 2019; the article has graphic images, so please be warned). Espada’s poems range from the personal to the epic, with calls for love sang out by tortoises, no less.

For more on the National Book Award— including the finalists.

This retells America’s beginnings in a more honest and well-rounded way by centering perhaps the most defining aspect of it: chattel slavery. By looking at U.S. history from that focal point, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story expands on the award-winning efforts of the 1619 Project‘s depiction of American democracy being rooted in the enslavement of Black people. It does so through eighteen essays and thirty-six poems and works of fiction. Hannah-Jones’s lead essay from the original project won a Pulitzer.The reaction to the original project has been so strong that Sen. Tom Cotton, one of its detractors, has fought to keep it from being taught in schools.

One of the reigning queens of Africanfuturism, Okorafor is back with a tale of Nigerian cyborgs and herdsmen. Even since before birth, AO has been considered abnormal. A car accident further saw to her otherness, as it required major body augmentations that would make her a target one fateful day in the market. There, she’s forced to kill five men in self-defense. Now she’s on the run. She comes across a Fulani herdsman who was similarly unfairly accosted, and the two set out together to find a secret community where they will be free from persecution. Familiar elements—like mentions of Greta Thunberg and other well-known people— keep the reader tethered to our world while reimagining an alternative one in this novel that serves as a critique of capitalism and what defines otherness.

Elinor Hanson, a half Korean and white journalist and former model, finds she must return home to North Dakota. In efforts to reinvent herself, she takes on a story from a prestigious magazine covering an oil boom that was recommended to her by an old professor. As she unearths details for the story, so too does she unearth uneasy old feelings of ostracization, objectification, and a general lack of belonging. Meanwhile, back in New York, there is a case being made against her old professor and Elinor’s classmates ask if the relationship she had with him was consensual.

Ekong Udousoro is a Nigerian book editor who has just won a Toni Morrison Publishing Fellowship, and is on his way to New York City to learn about the publishing world from one of its capitals. Once there, he is set to edit an anthology of writers of color who were affected by the Nigerian Biafran War of the ’60s. When he actually arrives, he finds a shabby living arrangement, bed bugs, callousness in the form of agents and landlords, and other unsavory NYC drawbacks. Akpan draws a parallel between the tribalism that resulted in the war back home and the tribalism by another name that plagues New York City, sowing discord among its inhabitants. Despite all of this, Akpan still manages to weave in hopefulness, tenderness, and humor in this satirical novel.

This collection of eighteen contemporary and intersecting stories of tribal life is told from the perspective of young protagonists. It features tales from the Ojibwe, Cherokee, Cree, Choctaw, Cherokee, Navajo, and Abenaki nations, as well as others. Well-known and newer authors shine here in these stories of resilience, humor, and honoring the past.

Little Badger writes from the perspectives of an asexual Lipan Apache teen girl— similar to her novel Elatsoe— and a cottonmouth snake teen from the spirit world in her second YA novel. The two teens’ worlds collide after a catastrophic event on earth. Lipan Apache storytelling is woven around tales of environmental destruction in this coming-of-age story.

Here’s an interview with the author.

This often funny novel is out today and follows Ojibwe woman Tookie as she starts to get settled into her new life outside of prison. Having found solace in books during her sentence, Tookie still looks to books on the outside and finds herself working at the independently and Indigenous owned books store, Birchbark Books in Minneapolis. When the bookstore’s most annoying customer Flora dies with a book open next to her, not having had enough time to properly mark her place, no doubt, she continues to peruse the bookstore aisles as a ghost. In addition to Flora’s ghost, the characters throughout are haunted by George Floyd’s murder (especially as it happened in Minneapolis) and COVID. This novel sees to it that America has a reckoning with its ghosts, which were born of its violent past and present.

The bookstore setting is based on Erdrich’s actual bookstore Birchbark Books in Minneapolis. I bought Elatsoe online from them for the Insiders’ group read and received it very quickly if you’re looking to support an Indigenous owned bookstore.

This recently won the 2021 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. It follows four young Blackfeet men after their indiscretion of hunting elk on forbidden elders’ land. Unfortunately for them, one elk is unusually hard to kill and they find themselves changing roles from predator to prey. With this novel, Jones offers an exploration of generational trauma and justice.

Rebecca Roanhorse’s follow up to Black Sun, Fevered Star, is set to be released in April 2022. The cover is absolutely s t u n n i n g.

Deepa Mehta is set to direct an adaption of Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi.

Billy Porter To Direct ‘Camp’ For HBO Max And Warner Bros.

This post by Sarah Rahman gives an overview of Poet Laureates in the U.S. Joy Harjo, the first Native American Poet Laureate, is mentioned here.

Kelly Jensen gives us the rundown on censorship news this week.

Danika Ellis dissects Matt Krause’s foolishness.

Danika, again, but with a palette cleanser in the form of some good bookish news, leading with how characters of color in U.K. kids’ books have quadrupled in the last four years.

One more palette cleanser: find out which 90s witch you are for a book recommendation

Phew. This one, y’all. Let me tell you. Broome structures his upbringing in Ohio as a Black, gay kid to an abusive father who used to hit him like he “was a grown-ass man” around Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool.” There were so many places that rejected him for him being who he was, whether it was because of his race or sexuality. When he gets older, he self-soothes through sex and drug use, to (foreseeably) disastrous results. These are heavy topics, but there is at least some dark humor strewn throughout this searing debut.

This is the first nonfiction book in the Kirkus Prize’s eight year history to win in the young readers’ category. June 23, 2018 saw the young players of the Wild Boar soccer team and their coach become trapped in a cave in northern Thailand. This is the meticulously researched account of their survival and rescue. Soontornvat was visiting family in Thailand when news outlets began covering the seventeen-day rescue that involved people from around the world. First-hand accounts from the rescue workers, color photos, details of the engineering required for rescue, as well as aspects of the region’s culture and religion all combine to tell an amazing story of endurance and the human spirit.

Silvia Moreno Garcia’s debut novel Signal to Noise about “1980s teens casting spells with vinyl records” is getting a makeover.

Elatsoe, or Ellie, is a high school Lipan Apache girl that lives in an America similar to our own. The only difference is that it has been molded by the monsters, spirits, and magic of Indigenous as well as other cultures. Courtesy of her maternal ancestors, Ellie has the ability to raise the ghosts of dead animals. One day, her ghost dog Kirby warns her of danger. She finds out her cousin has been in an accident and is in critical condition. He passes away in the night. She was told he was in a car accident, but before he fully passes into the spirit world, he visits Ellie in a dream to tell her that he was murdered. He begs her to protect his family from the man that murdered him, a man that lives in the mysterious town of Willowbee. Ellie travels down to Texas to find out what really happened to her cousin.

Side note: I’m actually in the process of reading this for our quarterly group reads book club alongside members of our Insiders’ program.

After carrying sleeping passengers for ten years— a necessity for having traveled light years— colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system. As its first mate Shell Campion awakens, she finds things have gone horribly wrong. For one, the A.I. that was meant to be running the ship is running ragged, secondly, and most importantly, people have been murdered. She contacts investigator Rasheed Fin and his artificial partner to figure out what’s happened. The only issue is that she’s a main suspect, and the one that’s been sabotaging the ship and causing deaths is still aboard.

Vân, a poor scholar, and Sunless Woods, a mindship that just so happens to be a master of disguise, previously only knew each other from Vân’s poetry club. When a dead body is found in the room of one of Vân’s students, the two work together to find the culprit. The journey takes them from teahouses to ascetic havens, and even uncovers secrets they’d prefer stayed hidden.

This is another novella in which De Bodard deftly guides us through the Xuya Universe, a fully imagined and unique world. It, like the others, is part space opera and part mystery, and peppered with details from Vietnamese and Chinese culture. Also, the covers for these are beautiful!

TW: self harm

The Good House was built by a pharmacist in 1907, and passed on to Marie Toussaint, a beloved Creole herbalist and Angela Toussaint’s grandmother. Despite its name, the Good House has seen many tragedies. Firstly, Angela’s mother took her own life when Angela was still a child. Years later, after divorcing his father Tariq, her son Corey also commits suicide with his father’s gun. Years later, as Angela tries to repair her legal practice, she goes back to Sacajawea, Washington where the Good House is to confront her ghosts and demons and find out why there has been so much concentrated tragedy there. Keep in mind that this definitely leans towards horror, like some of Due’s other works.

Due’s The Between was chosen for Emma Roberts’ Belletrist book club pick earlier this month.

In more adaption news, Singaporean writer Ovidia Yu’s Frangipani Tree Mystery series is being adapted for TV. It takes place in 1936 in Singapore amidst political uncertainty. In a bid to escape an arranged marriage, Su Lin takes the place of a slain Irish nanny in the house of the acting governor of Singapore. When another murder takes place in the governor’s house, Su Lin puts her journalism experience to use to aid British Chief Inspector LeFroy in solving the case.

A Holly Jolly Diwali by Sonya Lalli— a romance about an über practical data analyst who explores her Indian roots, and her more impulsive, passionate side. Eow!

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall— a YA graphic novel with a lesbian and Asian main character who gets caught up with the popular girls in high school…who also happen to be werewolves.

Sankofa by Chinudu Onuzo— Reese’s Book Club pick for October. This follows Anna after her mother dies as she traces her roots back to a father she never knew, who also happened to be the president of a small country in West Africa.

Michele Harper details her experiences starting anew as a freshly divorced Black female ER doctor in a new city. She sees how systematic oppression manifests within the medical field and how it translates to a lack of patient care. What she witnesses also helps her to come to grips with her family’s history of domestic violence— despite their social standing in Washington, D.C.— and shows her just how much social change is necessary.

“You do not get to speak about our pain, claiming authorship over what we go through…”

From being made to doubt our capabilities to not being given the space to speak on our experiences, Rodríguez details the ways academia is a hostile environment for people of color, especially women. She offers up this survival guide, suggesting artistic expression — in the form of poetry, art, and more— as part of the resistance against the academia’s inherent white patriarchal structure.

Prescod-Weinstein describes how the classroom is a microcosm of society at large, complete with all of its the racism and sexism. As a renowned physicist and one of fewer than one hundred Black women to earn a PhD from a physics department, she makes the case of how racism, sexism, and science are inexorably linked to colonialism. Her love of physics and Star Trek shine through as she details a plan for a new, inclusive way for the field of science to operate.

This is known to be the first and only history detailing how the medical profession has abused Black people since the beginning of this country. Washington starts with slavery, and how slave owners would hire out or sell enslaved people to be medical test subjects, continues with how Black graves were often robbed in search of cadavers for medical students, and also includes the infamous Tuskegee experiment that saw 600 Black men purposefully left diseased.

Through Medical Apartheid, we see the foundations of the distrust that Black Americans have for the medical establishment that exists in many till this day. We also see the history of how the medical field has come to devalue its Black patients, with disastrous results.

Although many of these books focus on Black people, the identification of Black people as The Other is what makes it acceptable for us to be abused.This ease with which others are mistreated makes it easier to continue maltreatment when more groups are identified as being outside of the dominant group. In other words, the abuse of one group affects everyone.