2810[high]5: Racial Justice Books from the Library

So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo:

Ijeoma Oluo offers a hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy--from police brutality to the mass incarceration of African Americans--have made it impossible to ignore the issue of race.

Available from the library as a paper book, eBook, and audiobook.

Stamped From the Beginning by

Ibram X. Kendi:

In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history.

Available from the library in paper, as an eBook, and as an audiobook.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander: Published in 2010, this is

a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.

Available from the library in paper, as an eBook, and as an audiobook.

Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad: The author l

eads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too. The book goes beyond the original workbook by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and includes expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.

Available from the library as a paper book, eBook, and audiobook.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson:

The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.

Available from the library in paper, as an eBook, and as an audiobook.

Bonus!

Want to read and process what you’ve learned in a group? The Charlotte Mecklenburg library offers Book Club Kits for current New York Times’ Bestsellers The Color of Law, Just Mercy, and The New Jim Crow, to help you begin your own book discussion with friends, families, or even strangers. Each kit includes 10 copies of a book, biographical notes on the author, and sample discussion questions, and tips on how to host a successful book club.  Learn more and see what book club kits are available by visiting the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library website. (Thanks Kristen Fuller for the tip!)

2810[high]5: Book Clubs

The Pocket Size Book Club: I know you’ve probably already decided you don’t have time to join a book club. You’ve probably decided you don’t even have time to finish reading this article. But before you go, you should know that the Matthews Library hosts a book club specifically for those who are short on time. The Pocket Size Book Club meets monthly and discusses books that are 300 pages or less. For July, they will be reading Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas, a story about a friendship between a sheltered young girl and a teenage maid in Colombia during the reign of the violent drug lord, Pablo Escobar.

Date: Wednesday, July 17, 2019 - 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

230 Matthews Station St, Matthews, NC 28105

Carolina Beer Temple Book Club: If you’ve ever hung out in downtown Matthews on a Tuesday evening, you probably know about the Carolina Beer Temple’s Tuesday Run Club. But did you know that once a month they also host a book club after the run? In case you’re more into reading than running, don’t worry, you don’t need to run to participate in the book discussion and the books will not be about running. For July, the club will be discussing the book Be Free or Die: The Amazing Store of Robert Smalls Escape from Slavery to Union Hero by Cate Lineberry.

Date: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 8:00 pm-9:00 pm

131 Matthews Station St #1C, Matthews, NC 28105

Books on Tap: Matthews 20s & 30s Book Club: The Carolina Beer Temple is not the only place you can enjoy an adult beverage while discussing great reads. The Matthews Library hosts a monthly book club at Seaboard Taproom and Wine Bar specifically for the 20s and 30s crowd. In July, they will be reading (one of my personal favorites!) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize, the novel is about the connecting paths of a blind French girl and a German boy during World War II.

Date: Thursday, July 11, 2019 -7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.

213 N Trade St, Matthews, NC 28105

Far Horizons Non-Fiction Book Club: If you’re more reading about real life, considering joining the Far Horizons Non-Fiction Book Club at the library. July’s book will be Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, by Jose Vargas. In his memoir, Vargas poignantly discusses his experience as an undocumented immigrant in the United States and the emotional complexities of trying to “pass” as an American and living in a country for most of your life but still not feeling as if you can call it home.

Date: Monday, July 8, 2019, 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm.

Matthews Library, 230 Matthews Station St, Matthews, NC 28105

Teen: Are you worried your teenager’s brains are beginning to melt over the summer? Encourage them to join the Teen Book Club at the library. Rather than focusing on one particular book, they select a different genre to discuss each month. For July, the focus will be Science Fiction books.

Date: Monday, July 15, 2019, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm.

Matthews Library, 230 Matthews Station St, Matthews, NC 28105

Bonus!

Are none of these book clubs your particular choice of genre? Did you know the Charlotte Mecklenburg library actually offers Book Club Kits to help you begin your own book discussion with friends, families, or even strangers? Each kit includes 10 copies of a book, biographical notes on the author, and sample discussion questions, and tips on how to host a successful book club.  Materials can be kept for up to six weeks, and you can learn more and see what book club kits are available by visiting the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library website.

Matthews Library Recommends: Reading for Women's History Month

In celebration of Women’s History Month, staff at Matthews Public Library have compiled a list of resources that enable you to explore the stories and experiences of women around the globe. You can also peruse the many Women’s History Month recommended reading lists available in our online catalog.

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 Adult Nonfiction

• She the People: A Graphic History of Uprisings, Breakdowns, Setbacks, Revolts, and Enduring Hope on the Unfinished Road to Women’s Equality by Jen Deaderick is an entertaining look at the 35+-year history of the Equal Rights Amendment’s ratification by U.S. states.

• Learn about the women recruited by Britain’s elite spy agency to sabotage the Nazis in D-Day Girls: The Untold Story of the Female Spies Who Helped Win World War Two by Sarah Rose Crown.

• The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone tells the story of Elizebeth Smith, who worked with her husband, cryptologist William Friedman, to expose Nazi spy rings in South America.

• The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore exposes a groundbreaking workers’ rights battle that came about after women who worked in the radium-dial factors during World War I fell ill.

• Emancipation of Angelina Grimke by Katherine DuPre Lumpkin: Originally published in 1974, this biography tells the story of Angelina Grimke, 19th-century abolitionist and women’s rights advocate.

• The story of women who fought to bring their husbands, Vietnam POWs, home is told in The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home by Heath Hardage Lee.

• From the Vikings to the present, learn about womens’ roles in battle in  Women Warriors: An Unexpected History by Pamela D. Toler.

• Jewish women’s influence on social activism is explained in America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today by Pamela Susan Nadell.

• Celebrate the struggles and achievements of some amazing change-makers in A History of the World in 21 Women: A Personal Selection by Jenni Murray.

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Young Adult Nonfiction

• Young women writers tackle big topics in Girls Write Now: Two Decades of True Stories from Young Female Voices. Interspersed is advice from women writers including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mia Alvar, and Zadie Smith.

• Get a glimpse of life for a 5-year-old girl who leaves Iran for refugee life in the U.S. in Taking Cover: One Girl’s Story of Growing Up During the Iranian Revolution by Nioucha Homayoonfar.

• Women who have contributed to our quest for space exploration are celebrated in Galaxy Girls: 50 Amazing Stories of Women in Space by Libby Jackson.

• Radioactive! How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World by Winifred Conkling addresses the lack of acclaim that history has awarded to these dedicated physicists.

• Learn about how a woman from Baltimore, Maryland became a hero of the Allies in The Lady Is a Spy: Virginia Hall, World War II Hero of the French Resistance by Don Mitchell.

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For Children

• Learn about 50 influential women in Anthology of Amazing Women: Trailblazers Who Dared to Be Different by Sandra Lawrence.

• Celebrate inspiring women throughout history, from Ada Lovelace to Zaha Hadid, in The A-Z of Wonder Women by Yvonne Lin.

• Emily Roebling was married to the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge construction. When her husband fell ill, she learned every aspect of the project and oversaw its completion. Learn about her in Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge by Rachel Dougherty.

• Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly is a wonderful children’s edition of the famous adult book that was adapted as a movie.

• You’ll be introduced to one of the first entomologists and scientific illustrators in The Bug Girl: Maria Merian’s Scientific Vision by Sarah Glenn Marsh.

• Wilma’s Way Home: The Life of Wilma Mankiller by Doreen Rappaport tells the story of the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

• Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away by Erica Armstrong Dunbar tells the story of Ona Judge, who escaped the Washington’s household and fought their attempts to reenslave her.

Black History Month at the Library

In honor of Black History Month, staff at Charlotte Mecklenburg Library have some suggested reading (and viewing) to help you learn about and explore the people and moments that have shaped our collective past.

HistoryMakers

Check out The HistoryMakers Digital Archive, an oral history collection highlighting the accomplishments of individual African Americans and African-American-led groups and movements.  It is unique among collections of African American heritage because of its large and varied scope, with interviewees from across the United States, from a variety of fields, and with memories stretching from the 1890s to the present.

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Adult Nonfiction

• In A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America’s Schools, Rachel Devlin tells the story of young black women who led the movement to integrate schools.

• Read the true story of Josiah Henson, immortalized in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in The Road to Dawn: Josiah Henson and the Story That Sparked the Civil War by Jared Brock.

• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, by Ibram X. Kendi, winner of 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction, exposes the origins of racist ideas and their role in rationalizing policies that promote racial inequality.

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Adult Fiction

• Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, the story of a young slave woman’s bid to escape the Antebellum South, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

• Jesmyn Ward won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing, an exploration of history and racism through the lens of a multiracial family in the rural South.

• Another Brooklyn, by Jacqueline Woodson, was a 2016 National Book Award finalist; it is a picture of life for a young African American woman growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s.

• Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers, winner of the 2017 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, tells the story of a Cameroonian immigrant’s pursuit of the American dream in Harlem in 2007.

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Young Adult Fiction and Nonfiction

• Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down, longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, takes place during an elevator ride of a 15-year-old boy determined to avenge his brother’s shooting death. 

• Monster, Walter Dean Myer’s classic, tackles issues of race, class, gender and the judicial system with a 16-year-old black teen on trial for murder.

• Dreamland Burning, by Jennifer Latham, tells intersecting stories of present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.

• Tony Medina’s I Am Alfonso Jones is a tale of police brutality and Black Lives Matter told in graphic novel format.  

• Presented in graphic novel format, the March Trilogy is Congressman John Lewis’ narrative of his experiences in the civil rights movement.

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Pre-Teen Fiction and Nonfiction

• Learn about Depression-era life in the South in Stella by Starlight by Sharon Draper.

• Mildred D. Taylor’s classic Logan Family series is set in post-Civil War Georgia and features classics The Land and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. 

• Linda Williams Jackson’s Midnight Without a Moon gives readers a glimpse of race relations in rural Mississippi in the 1950s.

• In Freedom on the Menu: the Greensboro Sit-Ins, author Carole Boston Weatherford envisions the 1960 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-ins through the eyes of a young African American observer.

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Young readers

• March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine by Melba Beals

• Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Stephen Alcorn

• What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld

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Picture Books

In the Resources section of our website you’ll find Books & Authors, where you can browse the complete list of winners of the Coretta Scott King Award, which recognizes African American authors and illustrators who express the African American experience in works for young people.

Introduce little ones to important figures in African American history with picture books like: 

• The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, A Young Civil Rights Activist by Cynthia Levinson

• Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison

• Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson

• Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

• Nina: Jazz Legend and Civil-Rights Activist Nina Simon by Alice Briere-Haquet