A well-curated assemblage of Black voices that draws profound connections among family, nature, aspiration, and loss.
A unique collection of nature writing focused on Black experience and memory.
This book is a response to the absence of Black literature about attachment to the American landscape, a multigenerational dwelling place that is both internal and external. An abundance of relevant themes emerge: home as refuge, seeking freedom amid social oppression, gardens as healers, and the complex history of Black landownership. Opening with an irony that casts its shadow on the pages that follow, Sharkey describes a youthful photo of her mother “kneeling by a pond on a twelve-acre property in New York that she and my father will never own, but that will become their legacy.” Attachment does not equal possession, and Sharkey’s own quest for “home” becomes all-consuming, extending to the realm of nature writing that “has been dominated by white, cisgender men with access to resources,” from Thoreau to Audubon, Abbey to Pollan. These essays hit from refreshingly different angles. Birder Sean Hill juxtaposes his life to that of Austin Dabney, a Revolutionary War soldier rewarded with land grants and freedom (at least from slavery). Alexis Pauline Gumbs connects her life to that of “Black feminist speculative nature poet” Audre Lorde. The more academic essays are the fruit of archival research, though Sharkey reminds us to be attuned to “the racist structures in place in the institutions of memory.” Lauret Savoy provides ample illustrations of American place names that are “not innocent, passive, or neutral.” Similar in approach and spirit to Tiya Miles’ All That She Carried, these selections are written in response to artifacts, with the exception of Ronald L. Greer’s “Magic Alley,” which lyrically depicts the beauty and horrors of a Detroit neighborhood through the eyes of a child, a place where “the people who used the powdery substance alchemically transformed it to a liquid, then used a needle to escape to another dimension.”
A well-curated assemblage of Black voices that draws profound connections among family, nature, aspiration, and loss.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781571313904
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
