A tale of how grassroots spirit and gritty determination can bloom into hope.
A New York Times journalist chronicles the experiences of a Girl Scout troop founded in a shelter in Queens, New York.
The main character in the narrative, Giselle, the founder of Troop 6000 and program manager at the Girl Scouts of Greater New York, was once homeless herself. Stewart begins with the hardships and the eviction that forced Giselle and her five children to move into the Sleep Inn shelter in Queens. In an accessible narrative that encompasses a range of social justice concerns, the author chronicles Giselle’s initial encounter with the Girl Scouts and the idea to begin a troop when she realized that the girls around her would benefit from its encouraging community. Stewart also provides some light history on the founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low, and the author's discussions of the backgrounds of friends at the shelter who helped Giselle illuminate themes of empowerment and overcoming personal challenges. From the troop's widespread media coverage, which included an appearance on The View, to managing the social dynamics of the group ("the Scouts...were growing more and more unappreciative"), Giselle comes across as a poised, resilient organizer whose own journey toward finding a better housing solution for her kids lends the story extra tension—especially when juxtaposed against such pleasant traditions as Camp Kaufmann and cookie sales. While the melodramatic lines that close many of the chapters—e.g., “Back to being homeless and dreaming of a day when they weren’t”; "In seven months, the family would be homeless"; “What good are keys if you don’t have a home?”—don't always ring true, Giselle's life on the page unfolds in a readable fashion calibrated for emotional, uplifting crescendos. Stewart is also wise to let the Scouts tell their own stories, offering a more nuanced perspective to the story. Featuring a sensitive treatment of a still-existing homelessness epidemic, this is an impassioned look at how Troop 6000 inspired others to form in its wake.
A tale of how grassroots spirit and gritty determination can bloom into hope. (b/w photos)Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2075-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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