Literature Link for Feb. 20,2022 — Omnipotence or “We” rather than “I”
• “A Knowing So Deep” Author Tayari Jones reads Toni Morrison’s brilliant essay. [Audio] From NPR’s American Public Media’s program “Selected Shorts” is a segment celebrating Toni Morrison.” Guest host Tayari Jones helps us to celebrate Morrison, the American master who died in 2019. Morrison sent a letter to Black women that reads as a collective praise poem, a reckoning and an intergenerational clarification that includes herself, her sisters, her ancestors and those to come. The depth of the poem and its oceanic rhythm was informed by the writing she was doing at the time, which would become the novel Beloved. Her fierce, poetic visions earned her the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. [I could not find a copy of the text] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=848343469021820
• Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher. [Young adult novel] A compelling read about a group of “outcasts” who take on inequality and injustice in their high school. “ WHALE TALK is the story of TJ (The Tao) Jones, an adopted young black teen determined to live by his own code in the very white city of Cutter, WA. At Cutter High, TJ is a problem to be solved: maverick, trouble-making and maddeningly articulate, TJ is also the school’s most gifted athlete. T.J. Jones recruits some of the biggest misfits at Cutter High to form a swim team. They may not have very much talent, but the All-Night Mermen prove to be way more than T.J. anticipated.” I cannot say enough about how this book impacted me. Crutcher’s masterful storytelling creates characters we care for, hope for, cry for. I’m ordering a new copy for myself, having left my copy in my last classroom. https://www.amazon.com/Whale-Talk-Chris-Crutcher/dp/0061771317
• The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco. “Based on true events, this inspiring story celebrates the extraordinary influence a teacher can have on her students. As Trisha enters a new school in Michigan, she hopes she won’t be relegated to a special class. At her old school, she had trouble learning to read. On the first day, she is disappointed to learn that Room 206 is known as the junkyard. Fortunately, their teacher, Mrs. Peterson, doesn’t allow her students to feel like misfits. She divides her Junkyard Wonders into tribes, creating a sense of unity among them. One day, the children visit a local junkyard where they discover a place full of wondrous possibilities and collect objects for a class project.” [Grades 2–5] The WE vs I message is powerful. Do scroll down to read the reviews about how important this book is. The “look inside” feature is worth investigating.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399250786?tag=groboobyboo-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1
• “Declaration of Inter-Dependence” By Richard Blanco. This unusual prose poem is patterned after the U.S. Declaration of Independence. “ Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury…/ We’re her second job serving an executive in a shark-grey suit absorbed in his Fortune magazine at a sidewalk café. We’re the shadow of skyscrapers like giant chess pieces in a game he bet his family on, and lost.” Try reading it outloud. https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/poem/declaration-of-inter-dependence
in Faith,
Dale Dunnigan