March: Discussion Part 4

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9781603093958_p0_v6_s192x300Today is the last day of February and as such the last day of our group read of John Lewis’ March. Were you able to finish all three volumes of March?  What are your final observations?  What will you take away from John Lewis’ story?  I was really moved by his story but it also illustrated my own privilege.  There are many small things that I have taken for granted. Obviously, I was raised in a different time and place but I’ve never had to worry about where I had to sit on a bus or be concerned about what truck stops to stops at when traveling with my family.  My life would never be threatened because I wanted to register vote.  Even now,. as more and more states tighten of voting laws, I don’t feel that my constitutional rights will be threatened but I do worry for minorities and marginalized groups having their rights stripped away.  We have not come as far as we think we have.  Old prejudice are hard die and I worry about how much farther we will fall back.  It’s also makes me think about what I’m willing to go to jail for or willing to be beaten for.  I’m not really sure.  This year, I’ve already participated in my first protest march and have called my Congress representatives more then I have ever in the past.  I’m not sure I have the bravery of John Lewis and Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and so many others.  I seriously hope that it won’t come to that.  That we will be able to keep our protest peaceful and those we opposed will to as well.  The importance of this book is so we don’t forget the mistakes of our past.  To remind all of us about our history so we are not doomed to repeat it.  Knowledge is truly power.

 

 

Quick Review: King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard

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kings-cage You know that moment.  That moment when the main character makes a declaration statement that you can’t help but groan because you know they are just going to be disappointed.  Yeah, that happened about midway in this book and yeah, Mare was crushed when she found out she was wrong.  It wasn’t all that big a surprise because it is the third book our of four, so there still needs to be some drama left.  She couldn’t be set in romantic life so soon but it was also like, C’mon Mare!  Haven’t you learned anything yet!?  Anyway, I think I’m getting ahead of myself.  King’s Cage was another fast paced thriller that fits in nicely with the previous two books.  Mare begins as a prisoner of Maven, who is using her as a propaganda against the Scarlet Guard.  As Mare is imprisoned she battles Maven in an emotional tug of war.  She is shackled in silent stone manacles, depriving her of her power and making it impossible to fight back.  Her only weapon is to use what she knows of Maven but this is not easy because her own feelings for Maven are complicated.  The first part of the novel was interesting as Victoria explores the effects of abuse and can you be held accountable.  This is an addition to previous themes of what makes a person a monster.  Mare is scared that her powers has made her cold and heartless, to easy for her to kill someone and move on with her life.  Thanks to Maven’s mother, he doesn’t have those thoughts because so much of his memories she took away from him.  She took away his fears and love of his father and brother.  I’m not even sure what you call this abuse.  She literally molded him to be the cold killer he is today.  The only sense of humanity he has is obsession with Mare but even that has been twisted.  Cal on the other hand is still Cal.  While he has shown some growth over the novels, he isn’t quite as developed as a character as Maven is.  There seemed to be a change in him as he seemed to be turning around about the Scarlet Guard and what they are trying to achieve but the first chance to return to his old life is presented to him the seems to have taken it.  The book is still Mare’s story but as the conflict expands beyond her, we are given new Point of Views from Cameron and Evangeline.  This is a welcome change as all three woman are different and come at the conflict from different views.  They obviously see this conflict from different point views but they all think they are in the right.  My one grip with this book was the ending.  After pretty cool cliffhangers of the first two books, this one sort of fell flat to me.  It wasn’t the game changer of the others.  Sure, it assured that Mare was going to have to stand on her without one the Princes beside her but it was also predictable.  I guess since this is what is leading us to the finale, I wanted it to be more.  That being said, I am super stoked to find out how this series is going to end.

March: Discussion Part 3

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9781603093958_p0_v6_s192x300I would like to discuss the format. What do you think about John Lewis presenting this story as a graphic novel instead of a straight narrative story?  I personally, I loved it.  I think it was kind of genius. It’s one thing to read about the sit-ins, marches and the violence that followed but it’s another thing to have it visualized.  The illustrations are truly powerful and really make his story and the story of the Civil Rights movement come to life.  The graphic novel format also makes it more accessible.  How many kids or teens willing read history books?  All three books were quick reads but still powerful.  Giving the readers a full look of all the challenges that John Lewis and the movement faced.  The sacrifices that they made, knowing that they could be arrested or killed.  The visual aspect of the novel makes all of these more powerful because the illustrations are simple, yet specific.

Do you agree with me? What do you think of the presentation?

Discussion: How do you define diversity in your reading?

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So question for you.  As you know, here at Stacks are trying to broaden our horizons by seeking out stories, narratives and authors from diverse voices.  Last year we created our Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading challenge and we had mixed results.  I think we both only completed half of the challenge.  This year we decided to split up our challenge and focus on different aspects of the our original Challenge. Kate is leading our Diverse Authors Challenge and I’m spearheading our Diverse Narrators Challenge.  So far this year I have read 10 books and I have read some diverse narrators from Essun in The Fifth Season, Ms. Marvel and Frangie and Rainey from Silver Stars.  I’m starting to read King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard, who has described her main character, Mare as a mix race (white/Latinx).  I’m looking at my challenge and wondering about characters like Mare and Essun.  They are both described as olive or dark skinned respectively.  They are not the traditional white heroines that we have come to identify in fantasy and well fiction in general but they do not reside in  our world.  They live in a fantasy worlds that the authors created on their own.  In the case of Mare though, she lives in a world that came out of the ruins of the US after years of wars and natural disasters. Technically, Norta is the US but hundreds of the years in the future.  So can we count them in our challenge?  Is it cheating?  Or is it okay since they represent people and cultures in our world.  They may not be African American or Latina in the sense that we define them but they represent that narrative.  Women of Color can look to these characters and others like them and see themselves in them and isn’t that in the spirit of our challenge?  So dear readers out there, how do you define diversity in our reading?  Are strict in definition or if a character is define as “dark skinned” or “olive skinned” or anything but “fair skinned” as a diverse characters?

Let’s discuss this, sound off in the comments below.

March: Discussion Part 2

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9781603093958_p0_v6_s192x300 Hello, Beth here.  

I have had many reactions to this trilogy so far. I’ll admit it’s not an easy read as there are a lot of hard truths here. The question I keep asking myself is how can I be shocked when I know what’s going to happen? I know my history. I know this was not one of America’s proudest moments in our history. I studied in school about the protests and violent reaction to them. I’ve read about Emmit Till, Medger Evers and Freedom Rides.  So why am I’m still shocked to read how violent they were? How am I still shocked to read how angry, hurtful and full of hate people can be? It’s not like they were asking for huge things. They wanted to eat at the counters of stores they just bought merchandise in. They wanted to go to the movies. They wanted to ride the bus. They wanted to vote. How are any of these extraordinary requests? How am I still shocked by these when the news lately are full of people saying angry, hurtful and full of hate? Why do I feel like we are repeating history?

What is everyone else’s reactions so far?

Review: The Swan Riders by Erin Bow

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the-swan-riders The Swan Riders is the sequel to The Scorpion Rules that I didn’t even know existed until I made a little trip to The Strand last year with a friend.  When I saw it, I knew I had to buy it.  The Scorpion Rules was one of the better books I read in 2015.  It’s yet another dystopian novel but this time with a very sassy AI.  It takes place about   500 years in the future after several devastating natural and non-natural disasters. The biggest problem is a shortage of water that has lead to several violent wars.  So the U.N. decided to appoint the A.I. named Talis to come up with a solution.  His solution was to go all medieval on the world.  Every government must give a child as hostage and if they open war on another nation, the hostage dies and oh, a city is going to be blown up too.  At the end of The Scorpion Rules, our heroine Greta, the crown Princess of the PanPol Confederation that covers Canada to Great Britain, volunteers to become an A.I. not save herself but also save Elian, the hostage from the neighboring country that openly declared war on her nation.  It turns out that turning Greta into an A.I. doesn’t sit well with a lot of people.  The new King of PanPol Confederation refuses to give up a new hostage to replace Greta and soon rebellion starts to take hold.  As for Greta herself, the transition from human to A.I. isn’t an easy process.  In fact no many new A.I.’s survive the first couple of days so it’s a race to get Greta to the home of A.I. across Saskatchewan through an open rebellion.  The thing is the rebellion isn’t from the people Talis thinks it from.  Talis, Greta and two Swan Riders race across the country they are attacked and Talis is gravely injured.  Now they all must figure out why he was attacked before he dies and the city of Halifax is destroyed.  In way they have to convinced an A.I. to be more human and a human to be more A.I to change the world.  I’ll admit that I liked the ending of the first book.  I liked the open ending so when I did see the sequel I wasn’t sure how I felt about it beyond I had to read it.  This wasn’t as good as the original but it was still good.  While The Scorpion Rules was fast paced, this one was at times a little sluggish.  It just didn’t have the same flow.  While the main theme of this one is what makes us human and if we take out our human emotions from solving our problems then when do we cross the line of turning into a monster.  Can you really have peace through terror?  The threat of killing off a hostage or destroying entire cities hasn’t stopped countries from declaring war on another.  Maybe there are less conflicts but I wouldn’t say this world was peaceful by any means.  So while Talis rule may have saved billions people statistically but it hasn’t changed the world for the better and everyone needs help now and then.

March: Discussion Post 1

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Beth and I have both finally gotten our copies of March in the mail, and I started reading it at breakfast this morning! This couldn’t be a more pertinent read. As I am sure you have seen, Senator Elizabeth Warren was officially silenced for the rest of the hearing on whether to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. She was silenced for reading out part of a letter written by Coretta Scott King to the chair of the judiciary committee in 1986 on Sessions’ possible appointment to a federal judgeship. Warren was officially silenced for, ‘breaking Rule 19, which forbids members from imputing to a colleague “any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”‘ (quote from NPR.)

 

In the letter, King writes about the march from Selma to Montgomery in the letter, setting the stage to discuss subsequent actions designed to deny people their right to vote. She writes, “I was privileged to join Martin and many others during the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965. Martin was particularly impressed by the determination to get the franchise of blacks in Selma and neighboring Perry County.” You can read the letter in its entirety here.

 

Volume one begins with Lewis’s early life; we won’t get to Selma until volume 3 (I believe). It is not often that we read historical pieces that are so immediately relevant as we read them.

For this post, I’m not going to ask discussion questions. So, please feel free to comment with your first impressions of the graphic novel. Are you reading along with us? Have you started? How do you feel about pet chickens? We look forward to hearing what you have to say in the comments.