Day: August 17, 2015

Review: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

| Tasha

All the Rage by Courtney Summers

All the Rage by Courtney Summers (InfoSoup)

When Romy is raped at a party after having too much to drink, no one believes her that it happened. After all, she accused the sheriff’s oldest son and she’s the daughter of the town drunk. A year later, Romy has tried to put her life back together. She and her mother have moved in with her mother’s new boyfriend and her alcoholic father has left town. Romy works at a diner where no one knows about the scandal that she was involved in. But all is not good, she is bullied mercilessly at school for the “lie” that she told and she can’t trust anyone at her high school to have her back. Romance starts to bloom with the cook at the diner, a boy whom Romy is not sure she can trust and knows that she can’t let anyone at her hometown know about. As the annual senior party approaches, Romy knows she can’t attend but news that another girl may have been raped in a neighboring town sends her into a downward spiral, one that she may not survive.

This is one incredible read. The prose is beautiful, roaming and wild with a lusciousness that lingers in the mind. Summers makes the act of putting on finger polish and lipstick into one of battle paint and bravery. She also has a distinct feminist point of view that is a delight to read, one that shows the violence towards women and girls and rejects the notion that women are to be used and thrown away. She does that all by having a story where women are abused, raped, objectified and thrown away and where girls are called names, bullied and beaten. It is a story that is brutal in its fierce honesty and burning with anger at what we are allowing to happen to ourselves.

Romy is a spectacular heroine. She is a ball of ferocious pain, painted with makeup that allows her to control things, searching for a way to be a new person and finding it impossible to leave her anger and herself behind. Add to the appeal an African-American love interest where that is not the issue at the heart of the book. And a mother who is involved and cares deeply but is unable to save her daughter from the world they live in together. And a stepfather who is kind and lovely, disabled and disrespected. These people make up Romy’s family and heart. They hold her together when she cannot, though she fights to stand alone always.

A piercingly compelling read, this is a compelling feminist book that teenagers need to read to understand our society and what has to change. Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Poet by Don Tate

| Tasha

Poet by Don Tate

Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton by Don Tate

Released September 1, 2015.

George’s family were slaves in North Carolina. Though he loved words, George was not allowed to learn to read. But he listened when the white children did their ABCs and then got himself an old spelling book along with a book from his mother and taught himself how to read. He read everything that he could find, but loved poems most of all. He spent his workdays composing poems in his head, though he didn’t know how to write them down. Soon after, his family was split apart and he was sent to live on another farm. He worked in the fields and was sent to Chapel Hill to sell fruit and vegetables to the students. While there, he started to share his poetry aloud. The students loved his words and helped him by giving him more books to read and paying him to write poems for them. He was also taught to write his poems down and soon had his writing published in newspapers. George could then negotiate with his master to pay him for his time away from the farm where he could write. As George created the best life he could while still living a slave, the country was changing and a war for freedom was about to be fought. It was a war that would free George finally and allow him to continue writing but this time a free man.

Tate captures the life and times of this remarkable man with a tone of wonder at times. What Horton managed to do in his lifetime under slavery is amazing and a sign of the quality of the words he wielded so well. As readers watch Horton grow up and then fight for his freedom in his own way, with words, they will be devastated when he continues to be a slave despite his best efforts. Even the work of others on his behalf could not get him free.

Tate’s illustrations are exceptional. One can see the yearning for education on Horton’s face as he watches the white children learn to read. Tate also makes sure that Horton’s image shines on the page. He is regularly lit from outside lights of candles and the sun, creating a light around him. The illustrations also show North Carolina in the mid-1800s and Chapel Hill in particular. Tate also incorporates some of Horton’s poems into the illustrations, allowing them to flow past visually.

This is a choice nonfiction picture book that shows the strength of one man, his intelligence and the power of his words. Appropriate for ages 6-8.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Peachtree Publishers and Netgalley.