PrologueI WAS BORN January 30, 1975, in Ann Arbor, MichiganThe name on my birth certificate is Shannon Gibney, and my parents are listed as Jim and Susan Gibney. These are my white adoptive parents, who raised me. They gave me the loafers I remember wearing almost forty years ago. The backyard woods where my imagination first grew roots was theirs.The woman who gave birth to me and subsequently relinquished me was named Patricia Powers. She was a white, working-class Irish American woman who had a short relationship with my African American birth father, Boisey Collins, Jr. My birth mother named me Erin Powers after I was born, but I didn't find that out until I was nineteen. I possess no childhood memories of either of them.
IN THIS SPACE, in the space between the stories ... in the space between what really happened, what could have happened, what almost did happen to another girl with another mother who relinquished her and another absent Black father ... in this space is where we exist, we have always existed. Where truth is born and exiled.
Part memoir, part speculative fiction, The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be explores the often surreal experience of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee.
It is a book woven from the author's true story of growing up as a mixed-Black transracial adoptee and fictional story of Erin Powers, the name Shannon was given at birth, a child raised by a white, closeted lesbian.
At its core, the novel is a tale of two girls on two different timelines occasionally bridged by a mysterious portal and their shared search for a complete picture of their origins. Gibney surrounds that story with reproductions of her own adoption documents, letters, family photographs, interviews, medical records, and brief essays on the surreal absurdities of the adoptee experience.
The end result is a remarkable portrait of an American experience rarely depicted in any form. (Publisher)
"If I could, I would stay forever. I would listen, encourage and console. I would shade you like an oak tree on sweltering summer days. I would protect you like the fir tree against cold winds. I would offer blooms of spring to celebrate your dreams accomplished. I would burst with the colors of autumn to remind you that even as dark days come, so does hope." -By
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| My Vote Forward project table. Pretty stamps, colored pens, and addresses. |
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| Raise your hand if you agree! (Thanks Kathy, for sharing this with me.) |
Welcome to Empire Falls, a blue-collar town full of abandoned mills whose citizens surround themselves with the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors and who find humor and hope in the most unlikely places, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo.
Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it’s Janine, Miles’ soon-to-be ex-wife, who’s taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it’s the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town–and seems to believe that “everything” includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace. (Publisher)
Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic. (Publisher)
From the author of the acclaimed Year of Wonders, a historical novel and love story set during a time of catastrophe, on the front lines of the American Civil War. Acclaimed author Geraldine Brooks gives us the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women—and conjures a world of brutality, stubborn courage and transcendent love. An idealistic abolitionist, March has gone as chaplain to serve the Union cause. But the war tests his faith not only in the Union—which is also capable of barbarism and racism—but in himself. As he recovers from a near-fatal illness, March must reassemble and reconnect with his family, who have no idea of what he has endured. A love story set in a time of catastrophe, March explores the passions between a man and a woman, the tenderness of parent and child, and the life-changing power of an ardently held belief. (Publisher)
Recollections: I am a huge Geraldine Brooks fan. I've read five of her books and want to read two others. Oddly I can remember just about all the details of the other four books and just about none from this one. Unlike the other books in this batch, I have no desire to reread March.
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life—sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition—its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires. (Publisher)
Friday56 quote:You see people doing things they shouldn't. Sometimes you mind your own business. Other times you might say something, but it's hard to do that if you've been caught red-handed yourself.
After class, I duck into the nurse's office. I take my time using her Old Spice [deodorant], but finally, Pam's like, "Ian, you'll be late for advisory," and I'm like, "Advisory is the worst twenty minutes of my day. Mr. Z pretty much gave up after we wasted two weeks talking about kindness. You want to torture people? Talk to them about kindness for two weeks. What's kind about that?"
Summary:
Ian Gray isn’t supposed to have a dog, but a lot of things that shouldn’t happen end up happening anyway. And Gather, Ian’s adopted pup, is good company now that Ian has to quit the basketball team, find a job, and take care of his mom as she tries to overcome her opioid addiction. Despite the obstacles thrown their way, Ian is determined to keep his family afloat no matter what it takes. And for a little while, things are looking up. Ian makes friends, and his fondness for the outdoors and for fixing things lands him work helping neighbors. But an unforeseen tragedy results in Ian and his dog taking off on the run, trying to evade a future that would mean leaving their house and their land. Even if the community comes together to help him, would Ian and Gather have a home to return to? (Publisher)
Review: This book, written in a unique first person perspective, just about broke my heart. Ian is trying to hold everything together even though the main adults in his life don't or can't help him. What with a mother who is an addict, a father and grandmother who have abandoned him, and a grandfather who has died, Ian just keeps on scrambling trying his hardest to save his beloved land. But one young teenager battling against the world is a big ask.
I loved Ian's voice in Gather. It is just what one would imagine a teenager's voice would sound like. The Friday56 quote is a good example of that voice: You want to torture people? Talk to them about kindness for two weeks. What's kind about that?" Irreverent and wise at the same time. Ian is also irresistible. He can fix just about anything and manages to make friends along the way because of his skills. It is a refreshing to have a teenage character who can rely on his own know-how and ingenuity rather than a sullen one who feels sorrow for himself while he wittles away time playing video games or watching TV.
As an old retired high school librarian I can't help but ask myself the big question, "What teen would be attracted to this book?" It won a Printz Honor in 2024 for good reason but are teenagers attracted to award books like I am? Not usually. I think the kids that need this book are the kids like Ian, who walk the halls in every school -- the loners, on the surface anyway, who are trying to hold their worlds together with baling wire and spit. There are plenty of those kids in every school. Your assignment, school librarians, go out and find them. Get this book in their hands. Let them have plenty of time to read it since the book is rather long, 325 pages. And when they return it, be open to talking to them about it. Good luck! It just might change their life.
Every year, now that I'm retired from my role as a teen librarian, I tell myself I no longer need to read the YA winners of the Printz Award. Then I read books like Gather, and I say, "Nah, I'm gonna keep reading YA books. They help keep me young."
Rating: 5 stars.
The novel, told through the eyes of a grown Joe looking back at himself as a boy, combines a coming-of-age story (think Stand By Me) with a crime and vengeance story while exploring Erdrich’s trademark themes: the struggle of Native Americans to maintain their identity; the legacy of the troubled, unequal relationship between Native Americans and European Americans, a relationship full of hatred but also mutual dependence; the role of the Catholic Church within a Native American community that has not entirely given up its own beliefs or spirituality. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this haunting, powerful novel, Erdrich tells the story of a family and community nearly undone by violence. Using the quiet, reflective voice of a young boy forced into an early adulthood following a brutal assault on his mother, Erdrich has created an intricately layered novel that not only untangles our nation’s history of moral and judicial failure, but also offers a portrait of a community sustained by its traditions, values, faith, and stories. (NBA)
Louise Erdrich is one of the most important, prolific, and widely read contemporary Indigenous writers. Here leading scholars analyze the three critically acclaimed recent novels-- The Plague of Doves (2008), The Round House (2012), and LaRose (2016)--that make up what has become known as Erdrich's "justice trilogy." Set in small towns and reservations of northern North Dakota, these three interwoven works bring together a vibrant cast of characters whose lives are shaped by history, identity, and community. Individually and collectively, the essays herein illuminate Erdrich's storytelling abilities; the complex relations among crime, punishment, and forgiveness that characterize her work; and the Anishinaabe contexts that underlie her presentation of character, conflict, and community. The volume also includes a reader's guide to each novel, a glossary, and an interview with Erdrich that will aid in readers' navigation of the justice novels. These timely, original, and compelling readings make a valuable contribution to Erdrich scholarship and, subsequently, to the study of Native literature and women's authorship as a whole.(Publisher)
