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After you've finished Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad

by endless

If you're one of the hundreds of patrons who have checked out and enjoyed Colson Whiteheads award winning novel, Underground Railroad, you might be looking for another narrative journey about slavery, freedom and the routes in between. These novels are rich with historical detail, sense of place and the weight of telling long-hidden stories. Their flinty, insightful heroines struggle against systems that define them as property, and also against the pull of "home" with their enslaved family and friends.

James McBride's novel about a runaway slave who learns to follow a "code" of five knots invokes oral histories of maroons, parables about freedom and captivity, and the fierce will of it's main character to live a free life. Sue Monk Kidd's recently well received novel, The Invention of Wings tells the story of Hetty "handful" Jackson/Grimke, who grows up belonging to the famous 19th century abolitionist and feminist Sarah Grimke. Hetty's nickname is well earned, and this novel tells the story alternating between her inner monologue and Sarah's, giving readers an intricate picture of slave and free black society at the time. Edward Jones's pulitzer prize winning The Known World which follows Frederick Douglass' journey to Ireland and back, before and after his manumission.

Octavia Butler's Kindred is the foremother for all of these more recent novels about captivity and escape. Kindred uses science fiction tropes of time travel to explore the dangers of living in Maryland as a free black woman during slavery, and as a black female author telling a story about slavery. Like The Known World, Kindred jumps between slavery and freedom, questioning how one state depends on the other.

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Celebrating Our Own Thing

by amy

Image removed.

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Our Own Thing organization here in Ann Arbor. With Black History Month upon us, now is a great time to acknowledge the work of this incredible group started in 1968 by Dr. Willis C. Patterson, Singer A. "Bucky" Buchanan, Jon Lockard, and Vera Embree. Countless African-American students in the area have benefited from the cultural arts instruction provided by Our Own Thing, as well as their scholarship program which has sent numerous young artists and musicians to Interlochen Arts Academy. Watch the interview of Dr. Patterson from the AACHM (African American Cultural & Historical Museum) Living Oral History Project for a deeper look into the organization and the amazing man behind the scene.

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African-American History Month - grades K-3

by ryanikoglu

It's African-American History Month and here is a Public List for Kids Picture Book History - AFRICAN-AMERICAN stories - for gr. K-3.
There are great stories from real lives being told in picture books.
These stories are first steps into someone else's past. We see "history written" ... about people with famous and not famous names.
They are stories worth hearing.

Grab some titles and find out why these names are saved for posterity.
Stories from the past might inform decisions for the future.

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Friendship, Racism, and Courageous Love

by mansii

When an old friendship turns stale as you both change with age, what does loyalty and love look like? How do you decide who you are beneath the desire to be accepted? When a town trembles like a waiting bomb in the tension of racism, how do you be part of the healing when things fall apart?

Superbly written and deeply felt, Every Single Second by Tricia Springstubb is a densely layered exploration of what makes each of our moments significant. Through alternating glimpses of past and present, we follow the friendship of "secret sisters" Nella and Angela from Kindergarten through the start of Jr. High. Nella has been a refuge for Angela in the midst of a difficult family life, and Angela has protected Nella from some of her biggest mistakes. In the present, everything has suddenly shifted: their Catholic private school is closing down, Nella discovers a family secret that turns what she trusted in most upside down, and the big brother they both looked up to has made an un-fixable, shocking mistake. Nella and Angela need each other more than ever, but by now they have little in common, and the gap between them has become a gulf. Will Nella choose to be the hands and feet of love, or push farther into the care-free world of fun with her newer best friend Clem? Even if she wanted to help, the hurt between them may have pushed Angela out of reach.

The heroes in this story are outside the spotlight--quiet and courageous souls who walk into riots with gentle words of peace, give all their savings to help a grieving family of a different race, and go forward out of haunting mistakes to live their next days with goodness. Gently enough told for the young, and complex enough for those older, this is a story about where the strength comes from to meet tragedy and disappointment with fearless, courageous love.

*For more stories about friendship, big changes, and finding courage see Tricia Springstubb's other titles Moonpenny Island and What Happened On Fox Street *

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From the Page to the Screen: Hidden Figures

by PizzaPuppy

The new movie Hidden Figures is in theaters now, and is already generating positive reviews and a plethora of award nominations. This amazing true story, first published as Hidden Figures: the American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, chronicles the trials and tribulations of a group of extraordinarily talented and dedicated African American female mathematicians, whose calculations launched John Glenn into Earth's orbit and won the space race. These "human computers" used slide rules, pencils, and adding machines to perform the advanced mathematics needed to calculate trajectories, launch windows, and navigational charts in case of electrical failures, among others. These brave women faced adversity through sexism and segregation, but persevere through it all to become key players in evolution of NASA and space exploration. This amazing story is also available on audiobook and Large Print.

Author Margot Lee Shetterly will be speaking at Rackham Auditorium on January 24th from 4-8:15 PM. More information is available here.

Looking to learn more about the phenomenal women scientists that propelled us into space? Check out Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars (also available here in Large Print. Or learn more about the many women who have since traveled to outer space through items such as Promised the Moon, Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream, and Astronaut Pam: Countdown to Commander (an especially interesting nonfiction movie that follows Commander Pam Melroy and her crew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery). We also have books about women inventors, such as Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women.

Also check out our resources regarding two very famous pioneering female astronauts: Mae Jemison and Sally Ride. Books on Sally Ride for an adult audience include this photobiography and Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space. To the Stars, Sally Ride: Life on a Mission, and Who Was Sally Ride? are all intended for kids interested in learning more about Sally Ride. We also have many resources on Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to travel to space, such as this biography, You Should Meet Mae Jemison or Mae Jemison, Awesome Astronaut!. You can even read books written by the astronaut herself, such as The 100 Year Starship.

Just into space? We have lots for you to check out here at the library, such as Eyewitness Space Exploration, or the Astronaut Handbook. The Dream is Alive is a fascinating DVD that uncovers life on a space station, and witnesses the first space walk performed by an American woman. We also have a Library Space Camp program for kids coming on Thursday, April 6th at the Downtown branch, where you can learn all about what makes a successful astronaut and complete cool space activities.

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"Who Builds Anything in this Country"

by endless

When the heroine of Colson Whitehead's National Book Award winning novel, The Underground Railroad, asks who built the system of passages and caves that burrow throughout the southern states, a conductor answers "Who builds anything in this country?" It's a rhetorical question in the novel, but Whitehead's novel itself challenges our mythology of the underground railroad. From middle school history lessons through to the Underground Railroad museum in Cincinnati, white Americans have used the underground railroad as a way to imagine ourselves on the right side of history. And yes, there were white underground railroad conductors, many of them Quakers. But more often escaped slaves were smuggled by free blacks, branches of the African Methodist Episcopal church, or gained freedom by purchasing it from their masters. Whitehead includes these characters in The Underground Railroad: Ceasar, who was promised freedom when his master's wife died, only to be sold off to settle his debts, the elderly free black "proctors" at Cora's state run community in North Carolina with their pressed dresses and their equally pressed respectability politics, and Cora's mother who ran off when Cora was a small girl, choosing freedom and abandoning her daughter to slavery.

The Underground Railroad owes "our" ability to engage with it as a literary topic to a wave of stories about Harriet Tubman, the engaging Underground Railroad Museum that opened in Cincinnati in 2012, and the popular Jim McBride novel Song Yet Sung Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, andSue Monk Kidd's The Invention of Wings. White Allies with a penchant for magical realism will appreciate this last book, as well as "Song Yet Sung." If you liked Whitehead's second most popular novel The Intuitionist, Paul Beatty's White Boy Shuffle and Baratunde Thurston's How to be Black deal with similar themes with more of Whitehead's usual sardonic tone.

This book is perfectly pitched to be an Oprah’s choice, to form part of high school curriculums, or to be a freshman reading experience novel at the U of M. The violence is off stage or muted, the history is traceable, and it answers a question we grapple with today – what are the benefits and violence on all sides of interracial solidarity?

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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #616

by muffy

The buzz around Brit(tany) Bennett's debut The Mothers * * * is hard to ignore. Vogue and The Washington Post are not alone in their over-the-moon praises, so richly deserved.

A wise and sad coming-of-age story set largely in Oceanside, CA, it is about the tangled destinies of three teens growing up in a tight-knit African-American community. 17 year-old Nadia Turner, smart, pretty, and ambitious is getting out - with a full ride to Michigan, away from her silent father, and away from the grief of losing her mother to suicide; but not before she realizes she is pregnant by the pastor's son, Luke. Her decision to abort creates a web of secrets that will haunt them for decades to come.

Years later when Nadia, now a successful attorney returns home to care for her ailing father, her reunion with Luke threatens his marriage to Aubrey, Nadia's childhood friend as well as the peace of their church community.

Narrated by Nadia and a Greek chorus of gossipy 'Mothers' from the local Upper Room Chapel, who "(f)ar from reliably offering love, protection, and care,...cause all the trouble." (Kirkus Reviews)

"There’s much blame to go around, and Bennett distributes it equally. But she also shows an extraordinary compassion for her flawed characters." (Publishers Weekly).

Brit Bennett (Stanford; MFA University of Michigan), winner of a Hopwood Award as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, will be at Literati Bookstore at 7 pm on Monday, October 17, 2016 for a reading. Get there early.

* * * = 3 starred reviews

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On your mark, get set, RACE.

by manz

The film Race tells the story of 4 time gold medal Olympic track star Jesse Owens. It chronicles his time at Ohio State and leading up to his appearance at the 1936 Olympics, where he became a legend.

Owens (1913-1980) remains one of the greatest athletes of all time, shattering records as though he were just batting an eyelash. He wowed the world at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships right here in Ann Arbor, Michigan by tying the world record in the 100-yard dash and then setting the world record in the long jump, the 220-yard dash and the 220 low hurdles. Some call it the greatest 45 minutes in sports.

In 1936, at the nearly boycotted Olympics in Nazi Germany, he went on to win gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters, the long jump and the 4x100 relay.

The film does a great job of focusing on his big races and captures the spirit of Owens’ greatness and the challenges he faced dealing with racism and segregation in 1930s America.

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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #604 "It washed over me for the first time in my life how much importance the world had ascribed to skin pigment... " ~ Sue Monk Kidd

by muffy

With references to William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Suzanne Feldman's debut (and a winner of the Missouri Review Editors' Prize) Absalom's Daughters * is a tale of sisterly adventure through the 1950s Jim Crow South.

Young Cassie helps run the family laundry with her mother and grandmother in the black part of Heron-Neck, Mississippi. She has no idea that Judith who is white, is her half-sister, though she knows that it is her grandmother's plan to orchestrates the births in her family so that her descendants can, one day, pass for white.

When their father Bill Forrest runs off leaving the family destitute, Judith finds a letter from a mysterious sender in Virginia explaining they are heirs to a rumored family fortune, surely enough money for her to run off to New York City to be a singer. Sensing her grandmother's design on the jazz-playing Albino boy from New York City visiting one of the white families on the hill, Cassie realizes this may be her only opportunity to escape. The girls steal a car, and with a ham, a gun, and a map so old that state lines are blurred, they head north. While getting their first taste of freedom, courting danger at every turn, they are reminded of the tyranny of skin color, and the heavy responsibility of being the master of your own fate.

"Feldman’s prose blisters and pops with sparks... In this novel, most things are not as they seem, and Feldman doesn’t hew too close to reality. The sisters encounter mules who were once men, discover towns that appear in one place on the map and another on the road, and Cassie even spends a few days as a white girl. Eventually she decides to return to the skin she was born with; as a mysterious woman tells her near the end: 'What’s important is the past.' " (Kirkus Reviews)

* = starred review

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PEN/ESPN SPORTS AWARD

by iralax

Scott Ellsworth has just won the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing 2016 for his book, The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball’s Lost Triumph. It is the story of a 1944 illegal basketball game between the North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham and the Duke University Medical School team. Congratulations to Ellsworth, who is a lecturer in the UM Department of Afroamerican and African Studies.