Sunday Salon: The Diva Rules

Is blogging like riding a bike? I'm struggling to balance writing and reading and managing my off-line life. I miss being in this space though. Today, I begin again.

It's spring so let's talk about cycles, specifically our menstrual cycle. Did you read Eva's post about the Diva Cup and the book, Flow? I still haven't read the book, but I can tell you about the Diva Cup, a wonderful, green way to deal with your period. After reading Eva's article I knew I wanted to try the cup and lucky me, I won one from my friends at Feminist Review.

Love my cup! My flow can be heavy so I wasn't sure if a reusable container would work for me. May marks my second month of use and I'm sure now that I won't be going back to pads. I gave up on tampons years ago. They weren't ideal for me.

The Diva Cup comes in two sizes (pre and post-childbirth). It's made of bi-compatible silicone and you insert it similar to how you'd use the Sponge contraceptive. I wouldn't say a tampon because when I think tampon I think of insertion as vertical where with the Cup, you want to think horizontal so the cup can open properly. I've never used a diaphragm but the cup works much like the diaphragm: it blocks and holds versus absorbs the way a tampon does.

The instructions are fairly straightforward though I admit, I felt a little unsure the first couple of days. I had no discomfort so I wasn't sure if the cup opened properly (You're suppose to turn it using the stem one full rotation to ensure it opens but how was I suppose to 'feel' a full rotation?). Failure to open properly would mean the risk of leaking so my suggestion is to wear a pantyliner until you're comfortable that you know what you're doing.

I was more confident removing the cup. You simply bear down and pull the stem just a bit; the rim of the cup will emerge and then it's easy to remove then tip the cup's contents into the toilet. Wash the cup ( use clean hands when removing/inserting) with a mild, no-detergent, fragrance-free soap and reinsert.

The first month, I checked constantly to see if the cup was full. I suggest avoid doing this. I pinched and irritate my skin unnecessarily by removing and reinserting the cup too frequently. Better to use a pantyliner and change the cup as often as you normally would a regular pad or tampon. Max is up to 12 hours before changing. I empty my cup approximately 3-8 hours. My cycle goes from heavy first days then tapers off.

This month, I felt like an almost pro. I am comfortable with the cup. Cleaning is easy. The website is very helpful. I like that I'm not creating unnecessary trash and I don't miss forgetting or not having enough pads with me. No rushing to the store and looking for brands I prefer. And while leakage can happen with the cup, I found the cup is a better receptor for someone like me who suffers clots. Anyone who has clots know they can wreak havoc in your underwear. With the cup, a heavier flow shows up with a less damaging spotting in the toilet when I urinate.

Now changing at work can be tricky. You'll need wipes and water you can take into the stall with you or use a unisex bathroom where you have complete privacy and can use the sink. Most public spaces have family bathrooms. The time to remove, clean and reinsert takes little time with practice.

Moving on. Please consider sponsoring me for Take Steps Be Heard. The date is June 26th. It's around the corner and I have very little in my bank.

I joined the walk at the same time I joined a weight loss challenge at work and my goal is to earn a dollar per pound per donor. My 12-week goal is 15 pounds. Fellow participants in the challenge are walking with me for Crohn's and Colitis. If you can please donate.

Each week we have an exercise, lifestyle and food challenge. The weight is coming off slowly and I mean very little. According to nutritionists, given my age, activity level and metabolism, I’m losing at a healthy rate. I’ve worked my way up to exercising 5-6 days a week. I read food labels and I’ve improved significantly in eating only the recommended serving amount.

Sunday Salon: Taking Steps To Be Heard for Crohn's & Colitis Foundation

If you noticed the lack of posts last week, it's because I've been busy with off-line activities. In short order: I'm gearing up for an district contest with Toastmasters on Saturday. I'm facilitating our Brown Bag It Book Club at work on Thursday. On Friday, I'm launching a fit challenge with a newly formed club, The First Friday Fit Club. The fit club isn't officially running yet we've signed on for a local walk to help raise money for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation. I'm Team Captain.

My personal weight loss goal is 15 pounds over 12 weeks (length of the challenge). How about matching me dollar per pound? You can make donations at my Take Steps page here.

Not much reading. I've exercised three of the last four days and spent some time spring cleaning. The weather is nice. Yesterday I was ambitious and walked 1.5 each way to a local retail store to get prizes for our fit club. I have literature to print for my meetings next week and I promised my guy I'd make potato salad to go with his Easter ham.

Today is my daughter's 25th birthday. She's spent most of it at church. She's a teen leader. Where did the time go? Hope you're enjoying time with those you love today.

The Sunday Salon: Urban Lit, Cash Cow?

Some things are worth repeating. I'm cross-posting this in its entirety.

Spicing it up this Sunday. I hope this alternate image has piqued your interest because this week's topic is not polite Sunday conversation. Real life isn't always tea and biscuits either so shall we get to this week's query:

Do you read urban/street literature? How do you define it? What does it provide readers, particularly young, disenfranchised readers? Can it be a gateway to other genres? Are there micro-niches within this niche book market? What are examples of the best of this kind of writing? Are there books under this label that you can’t relate to or don’t like?

Please consider these questions and read Zetta Elliott's interview with Vanessa Irvin Morris before you read my response. My opinion is biased.



Why I don’t read urban literature marketed to a black audience

Last week, Pam rightfully called me out for the slant of my questions for the query. This week, I make no apology for my opinion but I hope the questions are open and not biased.

This past week a girlfriend and I commiserated together about a book her teen was reading. My girlfriend mistakenly thought her daughter was engrossed in harmless romance fiction. Said daughter devoured these books in volume all summer. Her latest read she passed onto a friend and that friend was sharing it with a slew of girls anxiously waiting to read it, too. The book, The Prada Plan isn’t the harmless romance my girlfriend believed her daughter was so fond of. “It might as well had been porn,” she said later. The book is salacious and titillating. To paraphrase a line I read, “Slim loved Disayna the moment she came busting out of Dynasty’s sweet pink p—y.”

A few weeks ago, Zetta Elliott interviewed Vanessa Irvin Morris who made a case for urban literature. I didn’t agree with many of Ms. Irvin Morris’ points and this personal experience with a group of teens passing around The Prada Plan only made it harder for me to believe young women gain something by reading street lit.

I’m sure the publisher and author would argue the target audience is mature adults. I get that. But the main character is in her early twenties working for Elite Escort Service. How many forty-year-olds are buying this book? The reality is teens and young women in their twenties make up a large section of the readership, and they gobble this up like other women tune in for their daily dose of soap operas.

While our children think we are ancient, I do remember the naughty books we read as teens. You found your dad's porn or you read the trashy 'true life stories.' These stories didn’t lead to me reading great literature and for today’s teens, sexually explicit material is blaring everywhere twenty-four seven. Teens don’t have to sneak around to find it: you can go online, turn on the TV and pluck a juicy title like NeeNee Does Manhattan off the shelf at the library. My problem with these books is that they perpetuate the ugly, lowest dominator, demeaning images of black women. Aren’t we objectified and vilified by mainstream enough? Do we have to voluntarily put on a dog collar? My girlfriend said she went to the bookstore this weekend and there was a wall full of these books. We will buy self-depreciating material but we won't buy literary and contemporary fiction written by POC writers like McFadden, Elliott, Brice and Howard in the same quantity? These writers work exceptionally hard to get a publishing deal and then a hundred fold harder to promote their work. That reality depresses me.

I know all urban literature like all rap is not misogynistic trash, but call a spade a spade. Penning a tale about money, jewels and sex doesn’t empower young women. It doesn’t build healthy self-images. And those who read it aren’t reading for it that either. I’m sick of our daughters being fed a steady of diet of crap. I want a way to get them to back up from this nasty buffet. I want them to think more of themselves. I want them to reject images of cash boxes between caramel thighs, long wavy hair and green eyes that make Negroes want to grind into them long into the night.

Makes me wanna holla.

Sunday Salon

It's been awhile since I've written a Sunday Salon post here. It's also been too long since I've had any real quality reading and writing time. I'm surprised that the number of followers continue to grow here. Actually, I feel guilty and embarrassed about it. I write sporadically, nothing particularly insightful nor creative yet many of you are showing up here.

Anyhoo, today I'm glad I've had a little time to read bloggers who do write well. Many are friends I respect and admire. If you haven't checked out a few of the bloggers I read, I highly recommend you check out Zetta at Fledgling, Jill at Rhapsody in Books,Tayari at Tayari's Jones and Claudia at The Bottom of Heaven.

Life is hectic at home and not just because of the holidays. The rogue cheerleaders have been suspended. There is a fierce and unpentrable alliance among them. I am struggling to find a balance in my reaction and doling out fair consequences. The cheerleading squad adopted two families so we finished shopping for a young girl and that was a nice distraction. We're just getting around to sprucing up the house with holiday decorations. I have a few gifts to pick up. It's another lean Christmas but this year doesn't sting as much.

Because I am new on my job, I only have Christmas Eve and Christmas off (unpaid). We're moving to our cubes on Wednesday, and we're all beyond ready to be in our little spaces. I'm looking forward to a daily, monotonous grind (hey, I need no more excitement nor challenges in my life). I'm looking forward to short, slow week.

Little reading but I have gotten in some. I put Marshall's, Brown Girl, Brownstones aside for now. It's a great read but it doesn't fit my mood right now. Instead, I picked up Graffiti Women by Nick Ganz and very much enjoying the artwork and the writers/artists commentary. A while back, Doret from Happy Nappy Bookseller or Ari at Reading In Color recommended Lockdown: Escape From Furnance by Alexander Gordon Smith. I requested it from my library and this weekend it finally came in.

I've signed up for several reading challenges for the new year (see my sidebar) and I'm thinking about approaching my local branch about starting a book chat group. The DQ has been enlisted. Of course she's thrilled. Cheerleading has taken up all free time for homeschooling (and to be honest we can't carry on a conversation for more than ten minutes before she's complaining and I'm asking why I have been forsaken) and her blog- well, Facebook is far more appealing. Anyhoo. Here's to a new year.

Hope you all are enjoying holiday activities and each other.

The Sunday Salon

Had a good week. Read a great post by Eva at A Striped Armchair where she asks readers to ask her questions about recent reads. I opted to do the same and I’m happy to say doing so has motivated me to get some reviews done.

Recently finished Skunk Girl by Sheba Karim. It’s about 15-year-old, Nina Khan. Nina is Pakistani and Muslim. Like most teens, she’s disgusted with her body, interested in a cute boy and feels socially awkward. Heap on top of that she's conflicted about what it means to be both a good Muslim girl and a regular American teen.

One of the things that impress me about the author is the frank language about race. I read a lot of multicultural literature and a good deal of American teen lit, too, so to varying degrees I question political correctness in texts including social groupings; I consider if the grouping come across as natural or an attempt by the author to promote inclusion and diversity. In Karim’s work, there’s no clunky pc filter. In Nina's high school, blacks and a few Latinos hang out together and Asians and South Asians hang out with whites. While Nina's friends are white, she is teased by other whites for being brown. Then there is the whole color issue among Pakastanis themselves. Later in the book when Nina refers to coolies in Pakistan, I was surprised because I had been told the term coolie is the equlavent of the ‘N’ word still I appreciate that the author uses it because it reinforces a sense of authenticity for me. More about race and other issues in my forthcoming review.

Currently reading Mare’s War by Tanita S. Davis and I’m really enjoying it. The story alternates between Mare's, the eccentric, cool grandmother who served in the Women's Army Corp during War World II and her granddaughters', Tali and Octavia. The exchanges between these generations are funny and so relatable. My grandmother would have been Mare's age and like Mare, Ernie had big, Auburn hair. My grandmother was a hot mess. I couldn't have chosen a better time to read this. Thanks, Tanita.

This week for CORA Diversity Roll Call, Ali asked us to spotlight LBGTQ literature or authors. Well, my favorite YA author is Jacqueline Woodson so completing this assignment was fun and easy. Hope you’ll read it. Ms. Woodson is a prolific writer, she’s written twenty-two titles for children, young adults and adults. I’ve also linked to Worducopia so you can check out other entries. Join us.

More goodies in my mailbox. Did you get anything in the mail or at the library? Hope you had a good week. Happy reading.

The Sunday Salon

Busy week, but got in more reading. Finally finished Brown Girl In The Ring by Nalo Hopkinson. Thoroughly enjoyed it. A great mix of magical realism, fantasy and science fiction. I have two other titles by her on our wish list. I’m hoping we get them. The used copies are very inexpensive so if they’re not donated, I’m going to cash in a few cans. I need to write reviews for some great reads including: Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins, Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger, Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie and Hopkinson’s book. I still have Cuba 15 to finish and I’ve started and enjoying Skunk Girl by Sheba Karim. To see what I got in the mail this week, check my In My Mailbox post.

My new pub schedule for Color Online is working out well. Of course, now I’m out of sync here at Black-Eyed Susan’s. Well, I do what I can do. Gearing up for the reading challenge next week at Alternatives for Girls. I have flyers and bookmarks to make. Prizes to buy and books to set aside.

Little Lov’n Monday participation is down and I've heard other bloggers say their memes aren’t getting their usual turnout either. I realize we have lives. Still, LLM is about supporting each other and frankly I think we all can do just a little more to listen. One reviewer was lamenting that blogging allows everyone to speak, but who’s listening? There are few who aren’t fond of this critic, but his point is valid. Do we do take time to hear and respond to someone else or are we preoccupied with our own ramblings? Speaking of ruffling feathers, I might have done just that with my Confession Tuesday post.

We received a very generous donation from the publisher of Airhead by Meg Cabot. The book isn’t what the title suggests. If you read YA or mentor young people like I do, enter my drawing to win a copy. I have three copies. Giveaway is here.

Hope you’re having a good day commenting to friends and of course, finding time to read a good book. Happy reading.

The Sunday Salon

Good week for reading not so much for blogging. I've been divided between the book drive, launching a new layout for Color Online and enjoying some good reads. The layout for Color Online is lovely. Do come by.

The book drive is going very well. Deb from Stoney Moss sent me some lovely tiles including The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which I have heard so much about and wanted to read. Thanks to Lenore from Presenting Lenore for a mega box of goodies. Thanks to authors, Diana Rodri Wallich and Sarah Holmes. Diana is sending us a copy of her book, Amor and Summer Secrets and Sarah from Read Write Believe bought us Tanita Smith's new book, Mare's Ware. Colleen from Chasing Ray has promised a box and my dear friend Edi at Crazy Quilts has offered to send a book for every two books her readers send us. Some many wonderful bloggers have blogged about our drive. I can't thank you enough. Please forgive me for not naming everyone.

I'm still reading Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson and Cuba 15 by Nancy Osa. Finished Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie; loved it and Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger, a good read.

Sunday night, members of Color Online and I will be making bookmarks for the young girls in the Rise -N- Shine program at Alternatives for Girls. Prior to that, my assistants and I will be cataloging new books and shelving them. For details on what I got in the mail check out my In My Mailbox post.

This is the first Friday of our new schedule for Diversity Roll Call. You have two weeks now to respond so join us. This week's assignment is poetry. Do check out "The Rose Bush" by Nikki Giovanni, my contribution for Poetry Friday. And for a bit of silliness, check out my ABC meme for Confession Tuesday.

I won't be picking up any books from the library for awhile. I have a stack from them and twice as many are coming in because of the drive.

So how was your week? Happy reading.

The Sunday Salon

Color Online Summer Book Drive
May 30-July 1.

For those of you who don't know, I run the library you see here at a local nonprofit. The agency will run its annual summer program. In between activities, we hope the girls will visit the library. This is the best time to run our book drive. Please consider promoting our drive our your blog. One book, one reader at a time.

This week I blogged and read less. In my current reading stack: Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson, Cuba 15 by Nancy Osa, Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie, Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger. It's been a busy week. Still, I got a few things done:

• Hot topic here was my weekly feature Confession Tuesday.

• Had a great week in terms book acquisitions. See my Library Loot & In My Mailbox post.

• Spent a great deal of time updating and adding content to Color Online. Check out our latest feature, Sewing Circle.

• C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call. We begin our new posting schedule this Friday, June 5th at Color Online. Join us.

• Great response to both Poetry Friday entries. One here and one at Color Online.

• Little Lov'n Monday. If you haven't shared any lov'n, what are you waiting for? Join us.

Hope you all had a great week. Happy reading.

The Sunday Salon

Highlight of this week was creating my own superhero and then writing about her for 3WW. Diana Peterfreund is currently running a contest for her new graphic novel, Dull Boy. Check out the giveaway and make yourself a superhero while you're at it.

The battle of between D-town and the Hills had been fierce. City folk and suburbinites fought over what was left after the Burn of '44. Read more of Mama Lockdown here.

Picked up some really good book at the library and got a few in the mail. Check out my Library Loot and In My Mailbox post.

C.O.R.A Diversity Roll Call is a great meme designed to inform and broaden participants' reading habits. Join us. New challenges posted the first and third Friday of each month. Ali at Worducopia and I at Color Online alternate hosting. You can find our schedule in my sidebar week prior.

Had a blast with our Weekly Geeks assignment which was to give readers a literary tour of our hometown. I'm from the big D, Detroit. Before you say cars or Motown, know that we are city of poets. Followed up my wg assignment with a Poetry Friday selection, a poem by Detroiter, Sadiq Bey entitled "Morning 85."

Last week I shared I was reading Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia. I finished it. It was raw, brutal in its candor and all the intensity of a 24 episode without Jack using questionable tactics and things blowing up. An incredible read. I loved it. If you don't know the author check out her interview here. Stay tuned for a full review. I also read and reviewed The Chosen One by Carol Lynch-Williams. If you like a tearjerker, you might like this. Didn't work for me. Find out why here.

Some of you know I also publish at Color Online, a blog that is an extension of a community group I founded to support young women. Our blog features women writers of color. This week I added a new feature, Sewing Circle. Looking for a new read, check out Color Online. We also host a monthly trivia quizzes. Answer correctly and your name is entered in a drawing for a free book from our Prize Bucket.

Lastly, I'm currently reading Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins. I've been looking forward to reading Mitali's latest book. In addition to writing her own books, she writes a blog and commits a good deal of her time to promoting other writers of color. Read her at Mitali's Fire Escape. I'm also reading Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson.

Find a list of Salon participants here.

The Sunday Salon

Besides a sinus headache that put me in bed for two days, I had a good week. I got my fill of great blog reading this week and I participated in a few memes. Speaking of memes, won't you share with us how diverse your reading habits are? Check out the meme at Color Online and leave a link if you respond. We're looking for guest and regular contributing writers for Color Online. If you're interested, drop me a note at cora_litgroup.com

I'm slowly becoming acclimated with Twitter. Call me slow, but I've only realized that platforms like Twitter and Facebook are replacing what e-mail accounts were for us early Internet users. I knew listserves and message boards were dinosaurs, but I hadn't realized that online users today use their social networking accounts like I previously used email and chatrooms.

Light week for books. And for me that's a good thing. My tbr pile is seriously threatening to fall over and two weeks in a row, I've had to return and renew what I currently have out from the library. See my weekly mailbox post here. Don't forget May is Asian Pacific Island Awareness and Latin Book Month. Did you read anything related to either groups?

I'm currently reading Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia. It's a story about girl violence in schools. I'm a Williams fan. Check out her interview at The Brown Bookshelf. I've also read Every Time A Rainbow Dies and No Laughter Here and Like Sisters on The Homefront.

We've opted to change our schedule for C.O.R.A. to the first and third Friday of every month. We think the extra time between assignments will keep the meme fun and allow participants more time to write and share their contributions. See Ali's current assignment regarding children's literature here. Check out last week's YA literature responses here.

Every Monday is Little Lov'n Monday. On Mondays we commit to reading and commenting to fellow bloggers. We also want to give some lov'n back. Weekly drawing for a free book just for supporting your peers. Congratulations to this week's winner, Geoffrey Philip. Geoffrey is a warm, intelligent, nice-on-the-eyes island fella. Check him out here. If you haven't joined us, do. Who doesn't want a little lov'n?

Check out my response to Diversity In Reading. For my Confession Tuesday post, I wrote about key elements of a good blog. Great responses. Read it here.

Last week I shared I was reading Dr. Truelove, a YA novel by Derrick Barnes. Check out my review here. The story also influenced my 3WW post, "Streaking." Remember to check my sidebar for contests and other cool links.

Happy reading.

The Sunday Salon

Another busy week. Got a really cool surprise visit from author, Mayra Lazar Dole. We've never corresponded so imagine my excitement when she commented to my review of her YA novel, Down To The Bone. May is Latin Book Month. If you haven't picked up a book already, read this one.

Great week for new books, too. See my weekly mailbox post here. The highlight was getting two new titles that my library purchased at my request. We really have great libraries in my area.

We just completed Week #5 of C.O.R.A Diversity Roll Call. Our assignment was to look at stereotypes. Some very good dialogue ensued. Check out some of the responses. Roll Call is fun and infomative. I'm hosting Week #6 at Color Online and this week we're looking at YA that you don't know. We have a good group of contributors and we're growing. Come on and roll with us.


Every Monday is Little Lov'n Monday. On Mondays we commit to reading and commenting to fellow bloggers. We also want to give some lov'n back. Weekly drawing for a free book just for supporting your peers. This week you could win Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen or Hush by Jacqueline Woodson. If those don't interests you we have a long list of titles available. Join us.

Check out my essay, This Is How You Do It written for Weekly Geeks' assignment regarding reviews. I enjoyed sharing my thoughts and spotlighting fellow bloggers. My wg post links back to the original meme, too, so you can find even more new sites to explore.

To close out, I'm currently reading Dr. Truelove, a YA novel by Derrick Barnes, and I'm sad to say I'm not feeling any love for the doctor. Will be sharing why later this week. Come back for my review.

Happy reading.

The Sunday Salon

All around a good week. I got several books in the mail including books I won and got on trade See my mailbox post. Read and reviewed Heaven by Angela Johnson. Participated in NaPoWriMo again this year. Didn't complete 30 poems, but I'm glad I participated.

Every Monday is Little Lovin' Monday. LLM is a day we celebrate fellow bloggers and participants earn a chance to win a free book.

Every week I participate in 3WW, three word Wednesday. If you like light scifi/fantasy check out my story, "I Am Cretian, I Am Male."

Another great week for our C.O.R.A Diversity Roll Call. This is our fifth week. Read Week's #4 submissions here and join us for Week #5. May is Asian Heritage Week. Check out Cindy Pon, author of Silver Phoenix, a YA fantasy novel. Cindy is hosting a contest celebrating the release of her book. Winner could win an original painting or a $100 book gift card. At Color Online, I host a monthly literature and women's study quiz. Win a book from our Prize Bucket.
Now I'm off to see what other Salon participants are reading.

The Sunday Salon

Well, my week started out promising. I have a huge stack of books from the library. Received a couple of books in the mail. Then it began to rain and my allegeries kicked up.

A good week despite not finishing Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga which I am throughly enjoying. It's a beautiful novel set in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 60s. The narrator, Tambu is considerably honest in relaying her feelings about her brother's death, the opportunity his death provides her and her keen perception and resentment of the role of women in a traditional African society. Through Tambu, the reader gets an intimate account of the repurcussions of colonization.

In the mail I got a copy of From The Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson and Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult.

This week, I'm hosting C.O.RA. Diversity Roll Call at Color Online. Roll Call is a weekly meme designed to add color to our reading lists. I invite you to join us. This week assignment focuses on Asian, South Asian and Asian American writers. May is Asian Heritage Month.

Every week, I post literature and women studies quizzes at Color Online. Each month, one participant wins a free book. Come by. You might discover a new read and it's a chance to win a free book. And speaking of free books, participate in Little Lov'n Monday, and earn a chance to win a free book for showing a little lov'n for a fellow blogger.

Now I'm off to see what other Salon participants are reading.

The Sunday Salon

I've been looking for a way to better organized my posts, develop a posting schedule and figure how I want to talk about what I'm reading. After several weeks reading a variety of book blogs, I've decided I really don't have the time or desire to write lengthy reviews. I read at one blogger's site reviews that read more like annotations, and I've decided that's the way I want to go. I want to spend more time reading and less time writing impressive reviews. Besides there are some great reviewers out there and I don't want to try to match their skill set. Having said all that, I am very happy that Sunday Salon provides me with a scheduled day to talk about what I've been reading, gives me some guidelines for what to discuss and a network of people to share my thoughts with.

Recently I read Orange Mint and Honey by Carleen Brice (One World/Ballantine, 2008). If you enjoy mother/daughter relationship books, you'll enjoy this one. While the issues are complex, the story reads like a conversation. Shay is the daughter of a recovering alcoholic. She comes home for break after a meltdown during her last year of graduate school. Nona is still in the early years of her recovery. She's diligently worked on her issues and her behavior, is raising a small child and has attempted make amends with her daughter, but Shay is resentful. Shay wants to continue blaming Nona but she doesn't want to address how her mother's alcoholism has impacted her. She won't admit she doesn't know how to get her life back on track.

Brice has done her homework. Both Nona's and Shay's behavior are authentic. With only a few years clean, Nona behaves like many people in early recovery. She has a garden. She pays attention to her diet and she keeps herself wrapped in positive messages. And Shay behaves like a child of an alcoholic: she has poor interpersonal skills, she acts out when she is distressed and she distrusts everyone.

While the story is predictable, it is still compelling. Anyone who has dealt with addiction either as the addict or a family member, will relate to this. Readers can easily empathize and be judgemental with both characters. At times, a reader might favor one character over the other, but ultimately you want reconsilation for them. You want them to heal. I think most women who have had a strained relationship with their mothers will relate. I think the author was smart to keep this story straightforward and personable, too. It made this kind of relationship easier to examine; it gives the reader space to inject herself. And for some, it just might be a catalyst for revisiting relationships of their own. I enjoyed it.

I also read Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (Puffin, 2009). When a new boy comes to Frannie's all black school, she learns a lot about what she believes in and who she is. She discovers her own meaning of hope. The new boy who goes by Jesus Boy is appears to be white with long flowing hair. He used to live on the other side of the highway in the white part of town but it wasn't a good place for his black parents. Samantha, Frannie's religious best friend wants to believe Jesus Boy is Jesus. Trevor, the class bully who's absent father is white, wants to pound JB. At home Frannie's deaf brother, Sean, tries to explain to her about bridges to other worlds and her mom finds out she's having a baby after losing two others.

Race, faith, loss and disabilities is a lot to tackle in one children's book, but Woodson pulls it off. There is an accessibility and subtlety here that is indictative of Woodson's body of work. One reviewer complained there was little action in this book. Well, this isn't an adventure book. It's about relationships and self-discovery.
It's about hope. It's about tolerance and acceptance. It is about the nuances of how we relate to one another and how we respond to changes in our intimate worlds. While Woodson writes for children and young adults, her works, like adult literature are examinations of character. Often adult ideas about children's fiction inhibits adults' ability to recognize what Woodson accomplishes in her work: keen observations about character and dynamics that shape our relationships. Children, on the other hand only want to read a good story. Woodson is a deft writer who provides depth that enriches a read even for the reader who is unaware that it is there.

I'm currently reading Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Seal Press, 2004). I've read a few African writers: Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Beverly Naidoo. There is a lyrical quality in all of these writers' work. I haven't gotten far into this novel, but I already know it will be a good read. I like the construction, the pacing, setting and the underpinnings of the conflicts central to the novel. Looking forward to sharing more with you all in the near future.

I've picked up several books from the library. Not sure what I'll read next, but check out my Library Loot and In My Mailbox posts to see my options.

Now I'm off to see what other Salon participants are reading.