Book review: March

Happy African-American History Month!

To celebrate, check out the #1 New York Times and Washington Post Bestseller March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, winner of:

• National Book Award for Young People's Literature
• Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award, which recognizes an African American author of a book for kids
• Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young-adult literature 
• Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award
• YALSA Award for excellence in young-adult nonfiction
• Robert F. Kennedy Book Award
• Eisner Award
• One of YALSA's Outstanding Books for the College Bound
• One of Reader's Digest's Graphic Novels Every Grown-Up Should Read

Is this the same Rep. John Lewis our president recently derided as "all talk...no action or results"? Yes, it is.

As this graphic novel trilogy artistically demonstrates, John Lewis's legacy of action and results began with the Civil Rights Movement, when he was a college student. All three volumes flash between Lewis's participation in President Obama's Inauguration Day in 2009 and Lewis's recollections of his experiences as a young black man in America in the early 1960s, making the first black president's inauguration all the more profound.

• In Book 1, Lewis describes his childhood in rural Alabama during Jim Crow, his desire to grow up to be a preacher, and how meeting Martin Luther King Jr. influenced his participation in the Nashville Student Movement's lunch counter sit-ins.

• Book 2 begins in Nashville, 1960, as nonviolent sit-ins are met with both success and increasingly violent response. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) works with other Civil Rights leaders and groups to organize Freedom Rides, actively demonstrating for integration. The book ends with the 1963 March on Washington.

• Book 3 begins with the horrific bombing of a church in Birmingham in September 1963. Civil Rights leaders, activists, and supporters are mobilized, but the accompanying rise in violence divides even as it galvanizes. Stakes continue to rise as people suffer and die. The book culminates in the historic Selma to Montgomery marches. It ends, after a long, difficult road, with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Powell's black-and-white illustrations capture emotion and action cinematically, bringing scenes and individuals to vivid life. Lewis and Aydin write matter-of-factly, sticking close to events as they happened from Lewis's inside perspective. Yet the inherent drama--whether a SNCC meeting or a violent conflict with police--keeps pages turning, even if you think you know Civil Rights history. 

The book's tone echoes the tenets of nonviolent civil disobedience. The calm, factual rendering of each situation contrasts sharply with the irrational absurdity of the violence and rhetoric against the demonstrators. Who are the "bad guys" here, those steadfastly protesting unjust laws and accepting prison stays, or those hysterically screaming, hosing, beating, and killing people to defend the status quo?

Insane as the words and deeds of people like sheriff Jim Clark, governor George Wallace, and even President Lyndon Johnson ("You've gotta get 'em by the balls and you gotta squeeze!") seem--officials covering the murders of activists' bodies, beating activists in jail, assaulting unarmed marchers--readers will draw parallels to current events.

March serves as a reminder of what the "good old days" were actually like for millions of Americans. 

It also offers inspiration for those working for further reform and change to ensure that all Americans are truly equal and free.

I highly recommend this collection for readers age 13 and up. The language and violence--while accurate and effective--may be too challenging for children younger than 8th grade to truly understand, and the heroic acts may be too complex for young kids to appreciate. 

That said, I hope that families, classrooms, and book clubs will read and talk about March (and John Lewis) as we honor heroes of our recent past--with the intention of encouraging heroes for the near future.

Coping mechanisms

When I'm stressed out about events beyond my control, I tend to make stuff. Over the past couple weeks leading up to today's inauguration, I have:

1. Finished a first draft on a new kidlit novel

2. Knitted a Pussyhat for my sister-in-law planning to attend a Women's March tomorrow

Me modeling the Pussyhat.

3. Made my own seitan, aka "wheat meat," which is superexpensive at Whole Foods. Used it in Tandoori Seitan, which was a flop, and vegetarian Philly cheesesteaks, which were a hit!

4. Baked banana-nut bread from scratch

5. Made eggnog bread pudding (with rum sauce) from stale sourdough

I have a request for another Pussyhat from my son, plus a stack of books to read and review, and edits to that new novel, poets to respond to, and new recipes to try...

The world out there has gotten pretty scary and intense. For now, I'm in here, creating. And doing lots and lots of yoga. What about you? How do you cope?

O Say Can You See

My son has a fever, so I'm letting him veg on the couch in front of the TV today. Rather than veg along with Barney, Curious George, and Wall-E, I have been reading my sis-in-law's old issues of People. I just finished last week's double issue obsessively detailing every blink, smile, and grunt from the inauguration of our new president, and let me tell you, I read it cover to cover.

I'm not normally a big celebrity hound, nor a political junkie, and part of me was a little disturbed to see the level of detail this family is subjected to. And yet, I want to know everything! For the first time in years and years, I am not disgusted by the sight and sound of the leader of my country. I find myself rooting for Obama and his family and am continually overwhelmed by the significance of their presence in the White House. It's so significant and so normal at the same time. So right.

When I watched Obama's inaugural speech, I was sobered by his laundry list of problems our country has to overcome and his emphasis on the work ahead for all of us. As a post-Katrina New Orleanian, I feel as though I know something about work. And yet, after he spoke, someone sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," the song we all know by rote, and I was surprised to find myself tearing up. I was overcome by the idea of a tattered old flag still standing for something, still meaning something, something about hope and optimism, and the future, and hard work toward communal success, about caring for those who have fought to get us here (and here I think primarily of Civil Rights warriors, not Civil War--of suffragettes, feminists, activists, environmentalists, and everyone who labored in their daily lives in unglamourous circumstances with no parades to welcome the change they wrought). Not silly debates over whether to declare flag-burning illegal, or brou-ha-ha over who wears flag pins and who doesn't, but a unifying symbol of a hopeful country.

Even now, when I read about the bills Obama is signing into law (healthcare for all children!), and the laws he is questioning and putting the brakes on (limits to Wall Street fatcat bonuses!), I am cheered and hopeful. This level of optimism feels somewhat foreign to a cynical Gen-Xer like me, and I worry about the inevitable mistakes that will be made: will they be catastrophic? Will they burst this delicate bubble of hope so many of us share? But the romantic, the poet, the mother, the optimist in me wants to believe that maybe this really could be the beginning of a new era, one in which our country actually lives up to its potential, becomes the magical place we learned about in grade school, a place to which I will be unequivocally proud to pledge my allegiance.