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.

Ms. Marvel is the hero we need now

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ms-marvel-trump If you are like Kate and I then you are horrified about the actions of the current administration. All throughout the campaign, through his transition period, we were told not to take what Trump says seriously. He isn’t going to build a wall. He wasn’t going to ban an entire religion. He has seriously begun one and made steps to do the other. I’m almost afraid to turn on the news or go online. Even if you try to avoid social media, you can’t escape the outside world entirely.  Really, for the first time, I truly feel afraid. I have now lived in New York City for almost nine years.  I work on the World Trade Center.  Everyday I am reminded of the terrible effects of what terrorism does to people, to cities, to nations and to the world.  I see the hatred, but I also see what comes after.  The love and caring for perfect strangers, the kindness that brings us all together after such horrific events.  Since moving to New York, there have been two possible attacks and yet I have never been afraid.  I have never been scared of being injured in a terrorist attack until the last couple of days.  In one day, he has made us more of a target than we were before.  He turned his back on our American ideals. I understand wanting to keep our country safe.  I want to keep our country safe and the current Immigration Order will in no way keep us safe.

Last year I started reading Ms. Marvel Graphic Novels.  Ms. Marvel’s alter-ego is Kamala Khan,  a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager from New Jersey.  She is a normal American teenager.  She reads comics and writes fan-fiction about the Avengers. When she meets her idols like Wolverine and Captain America she freaks out like any of us would.  She cares for her friends and her family. Like most kids, she toes the line between fitting with her friends and making her parents proud.  She is full of confidence and insecurities. She has doubts and fears about what she has done and what she could do.  When she comes into her power, the first thing she does is save a fellow student who bullied her earlier in the comic without hesitation.  When her best friend’s brother gets in trouble, she puts her fear aside and puts on her costume and goes to the rescue.  She does this because her religion tells her to help others if she has the ability to.  Isn’t that what we all should strive for?  Isn’t that what we all should be doing?  If you have the ability to help someone, shouldn’t you?  Even if they are a stranger to you?  Kamala Khan is a brave girl who goes out into her community and her city and helps those in need because she loves her city and community.  She is brave. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, White, Black, Asian, LGBTQ+. We could all use a little bit of bravery right now.  We all could use a little Ms. Marvel in us and we need to remind our representatives and our President of that, too.  Ms. Marvel and Kamala Khan are the Heroes we need right now.

Beth and Kate read: Who is ready for March?!

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On this day in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King and 300 others were arrested for walking to the Dallas County courthouse in Alabama to protest voter-registration rules.

 

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We will be starting to read  March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Artist) this week. There have been shenanigans and I had to reorder it today from the bookstore. Friday I will post our first discussion thread! Please consider joining us as we work our way through this award winning graphic novel!

Quick Review: Silver Star by Michael Grant

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silver-stars In the second book of Michael Grant’s Soldier Girls series, Rio, Frangie and Rainey have survived their first battle in Africa but the war isn’t over as the focus now turns to Italy.  Each of them have to deal with the reality of what they have done and what they will be asked to do in the future. They all have been asked to do things that they never thought they would have to do even though they knew they would be going into war.  It’s interesting how each of the our three heroines deal with their emotions but also how the adversity makes each of them stronger.  The narrator is still unknown though there are some pretty strong hints a to who it.

This book may take place during World War 2 in an alternative history but it is very much relevant today.  We are still debating the place of women in our Military.  We are still dealing with racism and yes you could even say we are fighting against a potential fascism regime.  Rio, Frangie and Rainey are just normal girls who all signed up for the Army for different reasons but the one thing that they have in common is that when they are needed they step up and do what’s right.  They all fight their own internal prejudices but as the book goes on you can see them all face it and realize how wrong they have been.  It’s not an overnight revelation or anything but you can see the walls coming down.  All three are very brave not just because they are fighting a war or stepping when needed and going above and beyond the call of duty.  They are brave because they are also not shying away from themselves and the sometime uncomfortable truths about themselves. I hope that when people read this, particularly the younger readers get that too.  We all have to be brave enough to face the challenges ahead of us but also in ourselves too.  I’m not sure if this a trilogy or if there are more books to come after the next one.  As of right now, we have made it to 1944, days before the Battle of the Bulge.  World War Two is in it’s final year and I’m very interested to see how our Soldier Girls go from here.