Unflinchingly honest; a memoir in which young readers can find useful lessons.
Adapted for young adults, this edition of a well-received memoir from 2021 chronicles the personal and educational paths of a Black astrophysicist.
By the fourth grade, Oluseyi knew he was different from his peers. The future scholar and scientist read quickly through textbooks unprompted and would “feel restless” waiting for everyone else to catch up. Though from New Orleans, he moved around quite often as a child. During a year and a half of instability, he rotated among nine homes and five schools. But it was in Mississippi, where Oluseyi settled, that he became, by high school, a “committed man of science.” This adaptation keeps the story intact, slightly condensing chapters to highlight material of greatest relevance to the book’s intended audience. The underlying theme of discipline, something Oluseyi learned about while participating in his high school marching band, permeates the second half of the book. Readers learn about his struggles at Tougaloo, a historically Black college near Jackson, with selling and using drugs and his later recovery in rehab. Later, at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Physics, his mentor, the department’s only professor of color, affirms his experiences and pursuits. Readers will delight in the cinematic storytelling and clear, fearless writing, and many will identify with Oluseyi’s unwavering dedication to his educational goals despite setbacks and detours, while others may find inspiration for their own personal and academic journeys.
Unflinchingly honest; a memoir in which young readers can find useful lessons. (photo credits) (Nonfiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781984849632
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
A truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story about a lost soul finding her way.
Navigating high school is hard enough, let alone when your parents are CIA spies.
In this graphic memoir, U.S. citizen Glock shares the remarkable story of a childhood spent moving from country to country; abiding by strange, secretive rules; and the mystery of her parents’ occupations. By the time she reaches high school in an unspecified Central American nation—the sixth country she’s lived in—she’s begun to feel the weight of isolation and secrecy. After stealing a peek at a letter home to her parents from her older sister, who is attending college in the States, the pieces begin to fall into place. Normal teenage exploration and risk-taking, such as sneaking out to parties and flirtations with boys, feel different when you live and go to school behind locked gates and kidnapping is a real risk. This story, which was vetted by the CIA, follows the author from childhood to her eventual return to a home country that in many ways feels foreign. It considers the emotional impact of familial secrets and growing up between cultures. The soft illustrations in a palette of grays and peaches lend a nostalgic air, and Glock’s expressive faces speak volumes. This is a quiet, contemplative story that will leave readers yearning to know more and wondering what intriguing details were, of necessity, edited out. Glock and many classmates at her American school read as White; other characters are Central American locals.
A truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story about a lost soul finding her way. (Graphic memoir. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-45898-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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