Book Nook Club: Civil Rights

Showing posts with label Civil Rights. Show all posts

April 18, 2011

Promises to Keep by Ann Tatlock

I received my review copy of Promises to Keep by Ann Tatlock from Bethany House a few days ago. I offered to review it because I had gotten into a Christian romance rut and thought that this would be a change of pace, and it certainly was.

This book is still "Christian" though very subtly so. It is very down-to-earth with normal people and common problems living in a realistic late '60's America. It is a well-written book with very believable characters. There are many life issues explored in the book. Race relations, spousal abuse, old age, losing childhood innocence, and the Vietnam War are all woven into this intriguing tale.

The thing I liked most about this book is how it shows God’s hand weaving together the lives of two families. It shows how he can work in bad times to bring about good.

Despite all of the excellent writing, I can’t bring myself to give this book five stars. I read books for a relaxing escape. There was just too much real world here. Of course, this is probably a defect of mine and not the book.

So if you are looking for a break from romantic flights of fancy, this is a great book to read. It has depth and life lessons and other things worth contemplating. I guess that I prefer something more light-hearted.

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April 7, 2011

Incognito by Michael Sidney Fosberg

I'm sure at one time or another we've all wondered about the mysteries of ourselves. A lot of us as children have spun fantasies of alternate beginnings. What if we're really the long-lost child of a foreign queen being raised in secret? Or perhaps we have a twin that was taken, or we were switched at birth? What would it be like to suddenly discover our whole lives have been a lie?

Michael Sidney Fosberg always knew the father that raised him was not his biological father, but for some reason never thought to ask questions about his "real" father. Yet as he approached 40 and his parents decided to divorce, he came upon a startling truth, an essential truth with a huge impact on the core of his identity. While he had been raised white, in a white family, his long lost father was African-American.

Fosberg was born in the midst of the Civil Rights movement in a segregated city to a White mother and a Black father. They struggled to stay together despite the incredible odds that were against such a couple in such a time, but his mother caved to the pressure. She left her husband and took her infant son to live with her family so her light-skinned son could pass for White and avoid the discrimination he'd inevitably face as a biracial child.

On the face of it, it's easy to say that this revelation shouldn't have effected the way Fosberg saw himself. But he found he had missed out on experiencing a rich culture that he'd always felt inexplicably drawn to, as well as relationships with an assortment of relatives who had loved him and long wondered about his fate.

Fosberg decided to take a road trip around the country, spending time with these relatives and interviewing them to learn more about himself. He also interviewed the parents who had raised him and his White half-siblings to put all the pieces together in an honest and cohesive fashion. Along the way he was often forced to question his own motives: was he being selfish? Narcissistic? Now Fosberg uses his story as a theatrical device to get communities and students talking about race and acceptance.

I received a copy of this book for the purpose of review.

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March 29, 2011

Deed So by Katharine Russell

Deed So by Katharine Russell tells the story of a young small town girl who always seems to land in some pretty sticky situations. It's 1962, and 12 year old Haddie is a really sweet and good girl. She loves and obeys her parents, attends church regularly and gets good grades. Sure, she smokes and drinks occasionally, but hey, no one's perfect! She dreams of the day that she can escape the dreary and mundane life of Wicomico Corners, Maryland.

But life that year was anything but dreary and mundane. Life that year was filled with confusion, fear and heartache. When Haddie becomes witness to a murder trial, her world begins to change.

The time period in which this book is written allows there to be many very heavy themes and they all come in to play here. Russell writes about segregation issues, she touches on women's rights, and she dives into the crisis at Vietnam. Aside from that, this book is packed full of action, including murder, scandal, arson, and kidnapping.

Although it seems to have quite a few themes, it comes together nicely in the end. When all is said and done, it's a story about how a small town community can survive anything when they work together.
4 Stars.

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September 3, 2009

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

If you are looking for a powerful, emotional, character-driven novel, then look no further than The Help. Set in Jackson, Mississippi in the middle of the Civil Rights movement (1962-1964ish), Stockett's novel paints a magnificiant portrait of three main characters: Miss Skeeter - the wealthy young white woman, Aibeleen - the experienced, yet bold black maid, Minny - the strong black maid with the amazing cooking and smart mouth. The narration in this novel is shared by these three women and Stockett truly excells at giving each woman a unique voice, complete with different speech patterns and spellings of words to indicate accent and vocal variety. By showing the events from three different points of view, the reader gets a complete picture of the volatile environment in which these characters exist and really feel their anger, embarrassment, shame, and fear right along with them.

At the same time that other white members of her Junior League are building separate bathrooms in the carport for the colored help to use so they don't pick up any "Nigra diseases," Miss Skeeter is a white woman who finds herself asking questions about why the black men and women of Jackson are treated they way they are and why they have to continue to just accept it as the norm. She begins on a quest to share the stories of "the help," the hired maids of Jackson, through a series of interviews with women. You will find yourself cheering for your three champions and relishing in their victories over their "white women" and crying at their defeats, fears, and tragedies.

The Help discusses common human decency and the question of why we treat one another the way we do, whether it is based on the color of our skin, the money in our bank account, the level of our education, or the brand name on our clothes. The question the author raises is if we have, in fact, moved beyond the days of Jackson in the 1960s or if the same prejudices continue under another name. Great book!

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April 18, 2011

Promises to Keep by Ann Tatlock

April 7, 2011

Incognito by Michael Sidney Fosberg

March 29, 2011

Deed So by Katharine Russell

September 3, 2009

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

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