#35-#38: Cooper, Aly, Williams & Wingfield, Malbunka

[sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com]

#35 - Michelle Cooper, The Rage of Sheep
YA lit by an author I already loved, but only recently discovered was a POC. Hester (like the author) is Indian-Fijian/Australian, growing up in a country town in NSW. The characters are marvellous, as are both plot and subplots. More here

#36 - Waleed Aly, People Like Us: How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West
Thinking a book is fabulous does not necessarily mean that one agrees with every word. This is one of those books. I think I'm more willing to mentally argue with the author because we're so very much of the same generation that we were in the same law school class. More here

#37 - Edna Tantjingu Williams and Eileen Wani Wingfield, illustrated by Kunyi June-Anne McInerney, Down the Hole Up the Tree Across the Sandhills...: ...Running from the State and Daisy Bates
Heart breaking. Heart shattering. Just as it ought to be. A really great, and effective, story of the realities of the Stolen Generations. In English with use of Yankunytjatjara, Kokatha and Matutjara languages (with translations and pronunciation guide). More here

#38 - Mary Malbunka, When I Was Little, Like You
The story of growing up as an indigenous child in a remote community: of moving around, of living as much as they could off the land. Beautiful illustrations, also by Malbunka. Uses Luritja words as well as English: as with Down the Hole the book includes a glossary and pronunciation guide. This is going to be one of those books I automatically buy as presents for every little baby I have a connection with. More here

Tagging - a: malbunka mary, a: williams edna tantjingu, a: wingfield eileen wani, a: cooper michelle, a: aly waleed, i: mcinerney kunyi june-anne, fijian-indian-australian, egyptian-australian

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[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

25) Toni Morrison's Jazz, which... I think it's probably the most pleasurable and satisfying reading experience I've had to this point on 50books_POC, which makes it an appropriate halfway marker.

I made myself a playlist of 1920s Jazz- Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith... and listened to it on shuffle on my iPod while reading. And the combination of the incredible music and Morrison's unbelievably vivid language was special. I was transported, transported to Morrison's storybook Harlem. I walked in those streets, waved to the people, made myself comfortable on a street bench watching the cars go by. I was in the speakeasies, in the hair salons, in the tenements. Wow.

I’m crazy about this City.

Daylight slants like a razor cutting the buildings in half. In the top half I see looking faces and it’s not easy to tell which are people, which the work of stonemasons. Below is shadow where any blasé thing takes place: clarinets and lovemaking, fists and the voices of sorrowful women.

Wow. The storytelling bounces back and forth like a jazz song, themes popping in and out, up and down, bopped from player to player, each time they resurface looking entirely different.

And then the ending, which I shall not spoil, but is probably the subtlest surprise ending I've ever read. The misdirection the narrator(s) employ, or perhaps don't employ but are themselves suckered in by, are just... wow. I don't even know what to say but wow.