January 2024 – Nonfiction Monday

January 29, 2024January 26, 2024

Black Achievements in Arts and Literature

Black Achievements in Arts and Literature: Celebrating Gordon Parks, Amanda Gorman, and More
by Elliott Smith (Author)
@ Amazon* | Bookshop*

Booktalk: There are many forms of art, and all of them have changed over time. In literature, dance, and fine arts, artists and writers have shared Black life, culture, and history. Many of them have broken barriers and inspired future generations. Celebrate the artists and writers who have excelled in the past and present, including author Jason Reynolds, dancer Misty Copeland, artist Kehinde Wiley, and poet Nikki Giovanni.

Snippet:

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

January 22, 2024January 21, 2024

There Was a Party for Langston

There Was a Party for Langston
by Jason Reynolds (Author), Jerome Pumphrey (Illustrator), and Jarrett Pumphrey (Illustrator)
@ Amazon* | Bookshop*

Booktalk: Back in the day, there was a heckuva party, a jam, for a word-making man. The King of Letters. Langston Hughes. His ABCs became drums, bumping jumping thumping like a heart the size of the whole country. They sent some people yelling and others, his word-children, to write their own glory.

Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, and more came be-bopping to recite poems at their hero’s feet at that heckuva party at the Schomberg Library, dancing boom da boom, stepping and stomping, all in praise and love for Langston, world-mending word man. Oh, yeah, there was hoopla in Harlem, for its Renaissance man. A party for Langston.

Snippet:
THERE WAS A PARTY
FOR LANGSTON at the library.
A jam in Harlem to celebrate the word-making man–

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

January 8, 2024January 7, 2024

Fighting with Love

Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis
by Lesa Cline-Ransome (Author) and James E. Ransome (Illustrator)
@ Amazon* | Bookshop*

Booktalk: John Lewis left a cotton farm in Alabama to join the fight for civil rights when he was only a teenager. He soon became a leader of a movement that changed the nation. Walking at the side of his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis was led by his belief in peaceful action and voting rights. Today and always his work and legacy live on.

Snippet: “Working for nothing,” is what John grumbled to his parents as he dragged his cotton sack behind him.

“God’s gonna take care of his children,” his momma told him, and kept on, picking all day, praying all night.

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!