If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
12 Sep, by in Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Middle Grade Readers
Let me know if you've heard this one before ...
BookDragon Civil rights Tag
The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden
09 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction
Two sisters, born three months apart on the same Alabama plantation, could not have more different lives. As the daughter of a slave, Sarah is Master Allen's property; as the legitimate Mrs. Allen's youngest child, Clarissa is a pampered young lady of means. Playmates as...
The Slave Poet of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls
04 Sep, by in Audio, Biography, Caribbean, Cuban, Cuban American, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Poetry, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers
Awarded the 2008 Pura Belpré Medal, "presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth," Margarita Engle’s biography-in-verse introduces Cuban poet Juan Francisco Manzano to younger readers. Born into...
Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by David Henry and Joe Henry [in Library Journal]
03 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost
The latest biography of "the world's most brilliant stand-up comedian" is the culmination of a project that took more than a decade (originally intended as a three-act screenplay) by screenwriter David Henry and his brother, musician Joe Henry. Born in 1940 in Peoria, IL, Richard...
I See the Promised Land: A Life of Martin Luther King Jr. by Arthur Flowers, illustrated by Manu Chitrakar, designed by Guglielmo Rossi
09 Aug, by in Biography, Black/African American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, South Asian, Young Adult Readers
Arthur Flowers, a "blues-based" performance poet, musician, and professor, introduces himself as "Rickydoc Trickmaster," to render the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. into a biography for younger readers, as traditional Patua Indian scroll painter Manu Chitrakar brings Flowers' recitation to vibrant life. Their combined...
As Fast As Words Could Fly by Pamela M. Tuck, illustrated by Eric Velasquez
21 Jul, by in Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction
In segregated Greenville, North Carolina, 14-year-old Mason Steele has the rare talent to transcribe his father's impassioned descriptions of civil rights incidents into effective business letters determined to educate and change people's minds. His father's civil rights group rewards young Mason's efforts with a typewriter....
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
26 Jun, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific
Give me a story with two narratives interwoven through nonlinear timelines and, usually, I'll be one committed reader. The House Girl opens in 1852 rural Virginia with a teenage slave girl named Josephine, then fast forwards in the next chapter to Lina, an ambitious attorney...
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
16 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonfiction, Syrian American
Clearly I waited too long to read this book, even though it sat ready on my shelves and on my iPod for years. Before I lament further, you should know that if you choose to go audible, Firdous Bamji doesn't disappoint; he remains one of the...
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
07 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction
Well, I've done it now. I've finished every Edward P. Jones book ever written ...
Where the Streets Had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah
04 Apr, by in Australian, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Palestinian, Young Adult Readers
Here's the seemingly simple story: When her grandmother falls ill, 13-year-old Hayaat decides that a jarful of her ancestral soil – a mere six miles away – will be the very thing that will make her grandmother well, so Hayaat grabs her best friend and goes off...
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
23 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific
I think I was somehow predestined to read Mudbound when I did: just after I finished Barbara Kingsolver's mightily disappointing Flight Behavior, I turned next to Hillary Jordan's 2008 debut novel. While searching for an image of the book cover to load here, I noticed...
The Stamp Collector by Jennifer Lanthier, illustrated by François Thisdale
03 Mar, by in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers
Here's how this mesmerizing book begins ...
The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine
26 Feb, by in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers
1958, Little Rock, Arkansas: A year has passed since nine courageous African American students – history's "Little Rock Nine" – integrated Central High School. Just days before the new school year is scheduled to begin that September 15, then-Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus closed the city's three high...
Heathy Kids by Maya Ajmera, Victoria Dunning, Cynthia Pon, foreword by Melinda French Gates
19 Feb, by in Children/Picture Books, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
"All children, regardless of where they live, should have the opportunity to grow up healthy and lead a productive life," writes Melinda Gates in her foreword to this, the latest "A Global Fund for Children Book." As she shares the wrenching statistic that over seven million...
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis [in Christian Science Monitor]
30 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers
Already designated “definitive political biography” on its back cover, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Brooklyn College political science professor Jeanne Theoharis will reside in my personal reading history as the most difficult book I’ve ever reviewed. Never before – and hopefully never...
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid
14 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction
The late Anthony Shadid is back in the headlines today with happy news: the double-Pulitzer winner's resonating memoir is one of the autobiography finalists for the National Book Circle Critics awards for the publishing year of 2012. House of Stone recounts Shadid's restoration of his great-grandfather's home...
America the Beautiful: Together We Stand by Katharine Lee Bates, illustrated by Bryan Collier, Raúl Colón, Diane Goode, Mary GrandPré, John Hendrix, Yuyi Morales, Jon J. Muth, LeUyen Pham, Sonia Lynn Sadler, and Chris Soentpiet
01 Jan, by in Children/Picture Books, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Poetry
Ready to ring in the new year? Sing with me now – I'm pretty sure you know the words to this one: "O beautiful for spacious skies ...
The Spy Lover by Kiana Davenport
26 Dec, by in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hawaiian, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples
The Spy Lover lingered on the top of my must-read pile for months, mainly because I just needed a break from the death and destruction of war (seems to be my reading theme for too much of this year!). I wasn't wrong to be afraid: set during...
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, 1941 by Lauren Tashis, illustrated by Scott Dawson
07 Dec, by in Fiction, Hawaiian, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific
Today – December 7, 2012 – is the 71st anniversary of the "date which will live in infamy," as named by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in describing the assault on the Pearl Harbor Naval Base and launching the United States into World War II. That the attackers...
Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books by Susan L. Roth and Karen Leggett Abouraya, illustrated by Susan L. Roth
04 Dec, by in Children/Picture Books, Egyptian, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
Surely this deserves some sort of supreme irony award: Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's recently ousted president, was one of the leading champions of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, completed in 2002 where the greatest library of the ancient world – the original Library of Alexandria – once stood some 2300 years ago....