I try to give myself a healthy reading diet, and part of that diet is books from the point of view of people who do not experience the world the same way my privilege as a cis white woman allows. When I picked up March: Book One it felt in many ways a basic history, an introduction to world that I was already relatively familiar with, even though it was not my own. If Book One is a primer then Book Two is a call […]
March On
I have loved Representative Lewis since studying about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and their role in the sit-ins, freedom rides, and the 1963 March on Washington. While the March on Washington is most often remembered today as the location of Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream speech, earlier that day in his role as National Chairman of SNCC John Lewis spoke, giving an inflammatory speech that nearly had other speakers pulling out of the March. When I heard last year that […]
The Anti-Gone with the Wind
This book is sort of like a combination of Cold Mountain and Gilead. And I mean that as a good thing because I really like both of those novels. The premise is that this novel tells the lost story of Mr. March, the father figure of Little Women while he is off to war. It’s told as a personal narrative from Mr. March’s perspective, with a small section near the end in the voice of Ms. March. March doesn’t go to fight in the war but to be […]
Make Good Trouble
The March Trilogy, winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, is a first-hand account of the civil rights movement in the United States as told by one of its leaders, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia. These graphic novels span the years 1960-65 and are presented as John Lewis’ recollections on January 20, 2009 — the day of President Obama’s first inauguration. This is an amazing memoir that is not only accessible to young readers, but would most likely be an eye-opener […]