Tag: discrimination

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (Play)

A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry (Play)

In his poem “Harlem”, Langston Hughes wrote: What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?

As far as dreams go, the Younger family has plenty: Walter Lee wants to leave his life as a chauffeur and become a businessman; his sister, Beneatha, has aspirations of becoming a doctor; Ruth, his wife, wants to escape their roach-infested apartment and give her son a bed of his own; and Mama dreams of having a bit of ground—just enough to plant some flowers. But dreams are for other people until Mama receives an insurance check in the mail. A check that might finally be the answer to everything the Younger family ever dared to dream.

This review is based on the play with a forward written by Robert Nemiroff. This edition is the most complete ever published—restoring two scenes that were before unknown to the public. I can’t imagine anything being removed from this classic work. Each scene is a masterpiece in storytelling—carefully developing each character to expose their vulnerabilities and insecurities and examining their struggle to break free from ties that bind them economically, socially, and culturally.

Hansberry’s opening words allow us to feel the weight and heaviness that this family shoulders. They epitomize the words “poor, but proud” and it’s clear that every-day life has taken a toll on them. Hansberry even makes the furniture tired as it too seems to realize the futility of hope: The Younger living room would be a comfortable and well-ordered room if it were not for a number of indestructible contradictions to this state of being. Its furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years—and they are tired. Still, we can see that at some time, a time probably no longer remembered by the family (except perhaps for Mama), the furnishings of this room were actually selected with care and love and even hope—and brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride.

A Raisin in the Sun is an homage to the African-American family struggling for something better and wanting nothing more than to be treated with respect and dignity. It tackles the women’s movement and civil rights head-on through a pair of siblings who are naïve, headstrong, likeable, and well-meaning: one trying to find her place in the world and the other attempting to find his place within the family. Although this play was first produced in 1959, it is still relevant today as millions of Americans live at or below the federal poverty line and minorities continue to struggle with social and economic inequities.

Throughout the play, Hansberry has Mama nurturing a small plant that she places outside the sole window of the family’s apartment. Like her own family, the plant struggles to thrive despite the constant care given it. The plant is dear to Mama as it represents the closest thing to a garden that she would likely ever have. Unlike her children, she doesn’t need a business or a career or a house to make her happy. All she wants is a small patch of dirt so that she could watch something grow. It seems that Minne Aumonier, an 18th century poet, had the same idea in mind when she wrote, “When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.” Like we always suspected, Mama really does know best.   

Rating: 5/5

* Book cover image attributed to: www.amazon.com

The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis (J Historical Fiction)

The Mighty Miss Malone

Christopher Paul Curtis (Juvenile Historical Fiction)

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/Gang aft a-gley

And leave us nought but grief and pain/For promised joy.

Her teacher told her that it was from a poem by Robert Burns called “To a Mouse”. Deza didn’t quite understand what those words meant—especially the “gang aft a-gley” part—but Mrs. Needham said that it just meant that even the most carefully planned out things could go wrong. Deza knew about this since a lot of the Malone family plans haven’t been quite working out lately. But if there’s one thing that the Malones do well it’s sticking together. After all, their motto was “We are a family on a journey to a place called Wonderful”. Before the Malones could get to Wonderful however, Deza and her family would have to travel through a whole lot of awful first.

Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, homeless camps, speakeasies, and the much-hyped 1936 boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, Curtis gives us yet another story centered around a tough-as-nails, plucky, and absolutely endearing main character. At twelve, Deza Malone is the smartest in her class and destined for something special. With a dictionary in one hand and a thesaurus in the other, she’s more than ready to take on the world one adjective and adverb at a time. Deza is charming, loyal, fiercely protective of her family—especially of her older brother, Jimmie—and principled to a fault. Deza is not a girl who’s afraid to take matters into her own hands in order to set things right…even if it means a little forgery or rule breaking now and then. Struggling to make something of herself while fighting racial prejudice, financial hardship, and social injustice may prove to be formidable challenges for some, but not for the mighty Miss Malone.

The Mighty Miss Malone is the second book by Curtis that I’ve read (the first being Bud, Not Buddy). In both stories, he gives us a main character who rises above their circumstances with grace, dignity, and integrity. His stories are built around the strength of family, the importance of hope, and the resilience of the human spirit. Through Deza Malone, Curtis reminds us that even though plans “gang aft a-gley”, tomorrow is always a brand-new day that brings with it another opportunity to get a little bit closer to a place called Wonderful.

Rating: 5/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Heidi W. Durrow (Adult Fiction)

Rachel Morse is eleven years old and living with her paternal grandmother in Portland, Oregon.  Born to a Danish mother and an African-American GI father, she finds herself caught between two very different worlds and struggles to find a place somewhere in the middle.  However, it is the early 1980s and Rachel is often forced to choose between black and white: “I see people two different ways now: people who look like me and people who don’t look like me.”  She builds her world around “last-time things” (like speaking Danish or saying Mor, which means mother) and “first-time things” (like feeling shame or excluded) and lives each day storing her anger and hurt inside an imaginary bottle.  Fighting against a tragic past and facing an uncertain future, will Rachel have to give up one part of herself in order to embrace the other?

Durrow gives us a haunting and heartbreaking coming-of-age story about a biracial girl desperately trying to find her place in the world.  Like Rachel, Durrow’s mother was Danish, her father was a black serviceman, and she possesses a set of piercing-blue eyes.  We can see what Durrow must have dealt with as we see Rachel longing to fit in and be accepted.  Rachel’s backstory is tragic and unimaginable and one can only imagine the inner strength our young heroine possesses in order to avoid a fate like her mother’s.  The beginning of the book is a little confusing as Durrow floods the reader with several characters in various situations across different points in time.  The storyline eventually smooths out, but then you begin to understand the meaning behind the title.  This launches the story in an unpredictable direction and the pace never slows from there.

Perhaps the most distressing storyline belongs to Nella, Rachel’s mother.  A Danish immigrant, she is unused to the treatment her biracial children face in America (her marriage was generally accepted in Europe).  As a mother, she loves her children unconditionally and vows to protect them at all costs.  She is broken by the injustices thrown at her children and wonders why people are unable to see her children as she does: “My children are one half of black.  They are also one half of me.  I want them to be anything.  They are not just a color that people see.”

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is haunting and harrowing.  It is not one of those feel-good books that is wrapped up in a pretty bow.  Instead, we are given a story that is raw and poignant and uncomfortably ugly but honest.  Under anyone else’s pen, the reader might be left with a sense of hopelessness, but Durrow is, in a sense, telling us her own story which, at its very core, is a story of survival.  A story where a girl refuses to be boiled down to simply this or that.  She is more than just the sum of her parts and her acceptance of this is enough to give us a relatively satisfying ending.  As Rachel says, “I’m not the new girl.  I’m not the color of my skin.  I’m a story.  One with a past and a future unwritten.”  And with that, the girl who fell from the sky realized that she had wings and could fly.

Rating: 4/5

*Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

 

A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo (J Historical Fiction)

A Medal for Leroy

A Medal for Leroy   

Michael Morpurgo (Juvenile Historical Fiction)

Michael has no father, brothers, or sisters.  Just his mother, Maman, and two aunts:  Auntie Pish and Auntie Snowdrop.  It is 1940s London and right after the war.  Michael’s friends call him “Poodle” because of his frizzy hair and French ancestry.  But Michael doesn’t mind much.  In fact, he likes being different, being special.  Regarding his father, Michael knows only what his mother has told him:  his father’s name was Roy, he was a Spitfire pilot, and he was killed in the war.  But when Michael’s aunt passes away, she leaves behind a clue that will not only shed light on his past, but also finally reveal who he is.

A Medal for Leroy was inspired by the true story of Walter Tull, the first black person to serve as an officer in the British Army.  Like his fictional counterpart in this story (Michael’s grandfather, Leroy), Tull grew up in an orphanage, played soccer, served heroically in battle, and has no known grave.  Both Tull and Leroy deserved a medal for bravery, but were denied because of the color of their skin.  Morpurgo is a master storyteller (author of the spectacular novel War Horse) and provides his characters with a surprising amount of depth given that his book is only 130 pages.  He delicately tackles the ugliness of racial intolerance and inequality while showing young readers the value of having dignity in the face of disgrace and showing love without reservations or conditions.

In a world that still seems divided by so many factors, it is worth looking at the words that Michael’s aunt, who served as a nurse during the First World War, wrote to Michael: “It was while I was with those poor wounded soldiers that I first understood, Michael, that when all’s said and done, it’s what we all want and need most: to love and to be loved.”  Words lovingly passed along to a beloved nephew that would serve us all to remember today and always.

Rating: 4/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.goodreads.com

 

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman

The Inn at Lake Devine

The Inn at Lake Devine   

Elinor Lipman (Adult Fiction)

“It was not complicated, and, as my mother pointed out, not even personal:  They had a hotel; they didn’t want Jews; we were Jews.”

In the summer of 1962, Natalie Marx’s mother mailed about a dozen inquiries to various cottages and inns along Vermont’s Lake Devine.  All came back with the standard rate card and cordial note.  All, that is, but one.  “Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles” was neatly written on textured white stationery.  This act of blatant and brutal honesty ignites young Natalie’s quest to seek justice and acquire vindication and understanding.

This book was an engaging read, but seems to fall victim to its own misleading marketing.  On the cover, it’s touted as a “witty romantic comedy”.  While there are spots of flirtatious frolicking, describing it as a Romcom might be a bit of a stretch.  Also, in the synopsis, we’re led to believe that Natalie encounters “a small bastion of genteel anti-Semitism” at this particular lakeside inn.  In reality, it is only one individual who openly exhibits this prejudice.  Ironically, we find out that Natalie’s own family is not immune to their fair share of prejudice, which proves to be far more damaging to Natalie than what she experienced at Lake Devine.

Lipman gives us a charming book with enough plot twists and interesting characters to keep the reader’s interest.  However, don’t expect “a tale of delicious revenge” as one reviewer stated on the back cover.  Rather, The Inn at Lake Devine is a light read, which can be made even more enjoyable if sitting in an Adirondack chair overlooking a lake.

Rating: 3/5

* Book cover image attributed to http://www.goodreads.com