There Are Things I Know by Karen B. Golightly. 5/5
This is a great children’s book about an observant and clever little boy who is kidnapped and must rely on his wits to save himself. It’s about the power of watching and listening, and of knowledge and knowing how and when to trust someone. Author Golightly creates a unique and true voice in young Pepper, one that I think many kids and parents will find relatable and honest. And while the book serves to teach a lesson, it’s never pedantic or preachy–it’s an adventure story that will help children learn to protect themselves.
Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry. 4/5
At the beginning of this book, the author discusses her connections with and similarities to Lorraine Hansberry, and intimates that this will be a personal kind of biography. And while it is beautifully written and well-conceived as a biography, I never felt the connections Perry suggests are present. Instead, it’s a good introduction to Hansberry and her closest friends and a few of her lovers, and it’s a pleasant read, meandering from moment to moment in Hansberry’s life. It emphasizes her social justice concerns and work, but it tells us that she was passionate rather than letting her own words do that work. It tells us that she was young and gifted and black, but quotes her own words only fleetingly. It’s an excellent book, but that introduction promised so much more.
The Alehouse at the End of the World by Stevan Allred. 2/5
I wanted to like this book. It’s elegantly written and has some very interesting ideas about the nature of self and life and death, and makes use of historically-relevant metaphorical figures. But it is dull, and it is repetitive, and all of the elegance and metaphor in the world can’t help it move along a little faster and in a way that makes any of the characters seem anything but cardboard.
The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. 1/5
In this book, a group of incredibly wealthy and powerful young people–and some of their poorer friends, some of whom are actually the wealthy folks’ slaves, gather together–or are forced to–in order to pull off a heist that will return one of said wealthy young people to the ranks of even more wealthy and powerful people. Everyone is young and gorgeous and magically talented and wears fabulous clothes and entertains in grand and whimsical and decadent places and ways and what a bunch of incredibly horrible snobs, who believe that your bloodlines make you better than other people and who use people in horrible ways to attain recognition of said bloodlines and what an utter waste of paper and ink.
