As my loyal blog readers know, I am researching and writing my first young adult novel, Half-Truths. Since the story involves a light-skinned African American girl, I have read several multi-racial books. I recently completed The Sweeter the Juice: A Family Memoir in Black and White (Simon and Schuster, 1995), by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip, a contemporary… Continue reading Multi-Racial Read #9: The Sweeter The Juice
I am reading multi-racial books as part of my research for my work-in-progress, Half-Truths. If you are interested in reading the previous posts, you can search this blog under "multi-racial" (upper top left corner) ************ When a upper-middle class white woman marries a black academic activist in Boston in the 1970's, there are bound to be… Continue reading Multi-Racial Read #8: Caucasia
Sometimes there are books that speak for themselves. The Color of Love , an autobiography of Gene Creek, "a blue-collar son of the South" is one of these. Gene's life-journey is noteworthy for one significant reason: in the Jim Crow South his mother, rejected by her alcoholic husband, fell in love with a black man. This… Continue reading Multi-Racial Read #7: The Color of Love
This powerful novel written in screenplay format, takes place during four hot days in July, 1863. Walter Dean Myers layers conflict after conflict into this little known story about the riot between African Americans and Irish immigrants in New York City. On the national level, the Civil War rages and Abraham Lincoln has just instituted… Continue reading Riot: Multi-Racial Read #6
I didn’t realize when I selected Zora and Me from the audio book shelf of my local library that I would be treated to a powerful, multiracial historical novel. But I was. Under 200 pages long, this book is the result of collaboration between Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon. Their fictionalized account of Harlem… Continue reading Zora and Me: Multi-Racial Read #5
Al Capone Shines My Shoes (Dial, 2009) In this sequel to Al Capone Does My Shirts, Choldenko takes the protagonist, Moose Flannagan, into closer contact with Alcatraz’s most infamous prisoner, Al Capone. Although this is a work of fiction, the book is based on research about the prison and interviews with adults who lived on… Continue reading Two Books by Gennifer Choldenko
Recently, historical novelist and my good friend, Joyce Hostetter, posed these questions on her blog: “What makes research exciting for you? What unexpected or particularly interesting forms has research taken for you recently?” I took up your challenge, Joyce. Here are some answers from my research excursions: Last year I interviewed Charles Jones, a light brown-skinned African American… Continue reading Why I Love Researching Historical Fiction….Let Me Count the Ways
Unlike the other multi-racial books which I have reviewed, Angela Nissel’s autobiography, Mixed: My Life in Black and White, is a contemporary look at what it means to grow up as a light-skinned African American woman. The daughter of a black woman and a white man, Nissel was born and raised in Philadelphia in the… Continue reading Multi-Racial Read #4
From the moment I read the title, When White is Black I knew that I would find stories within that would inform my research. Written by John Martin, this is another book which causes the reader to consider how the color of a person's skin affects how he is perceived and treated by both the… Continue reading Multi-Racial Read #3
"In Charlotte in 1950 family secrets unravel when a 13-year-old white girl (Kate) and a 14-year-old light-skinned black girl (Lillie) discover that they have the same great-grandfather."That is the pitch of my Work In Progress (WIP). Although I'm a little younger than Kate and I wasn't raised in the South, it's not too much of… Continue reading Multi-Racial Read #1