Race in America – Fancy Librarian

owens 01.19 — Cover image shown with permission from Putnam

At the age of six Kya Clark is abandoned by her mother and slowly her older brothers and sisters follow out, unable to share space with an abusive and alcoholic father. As time goes on Kya must learn to fend for herself in the wetlands of North Carolina as she traverses life completely alone. Set in the 1950s-60s, her only friends are Jumpin’ and Mabel, a black couple who take pity on her and embrace her as one of their own in the segregated area called Colored Town. The rest of neighboring town Barkley Cove rejects her, and the young, abandoned child who only wants the love of a family is cast aside and simply known as the wild “Marsh Girl.”

When the beloved local quarterback is found dead in the marsh, detectives begin to stack evidence, mostly unsubstantiated, against Kya, slowly building suspense as your concern for Kya’s well-being grows. Alternating scenes of the investigation and Kya’s life growing up paints a striking portrait of the biases and bigotry endured by those who deemed to be separate or other. Owens, a skilled non-fiction writer who until this book has only written about her experience as a wildlife scientist, deftly creates a story set in the natural world that also understands what it means to be human and loved. The novel is as wild and as rich as its setting and builds to a climax that left me absolutely floored.

I couldn’t put this book down and ultimately read it in one day, staying up way past my bedtime to come to the end. However, I also found some parts very hard to read, the scenes of Kya being ostracized clipping my heart a little too close. This is ultimately a story of survival, and Kya manages not only to survive but to thrive, finding her own way and learning to trust over fear of abandonment. Beautifully written, filled with lyrical poetry and striking prose, Where the Crawdads Sing is a remarkable story with an unforgettable ending, I would recommend it for those looking for stories of justice, wildlife survival, and the perfect read for a book-club (it’s best read with a friend, you will have a lot to discuss!)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Published: August 14, 2018

I read this as: A hardback gifted by a friend

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Image included with permission from Penguin Press

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

Izzy Richardson does not follow the rules, and this is a problem for her mother, Elena Richardson, born and raised in Shaker Heights, and life-long rule follower. The older three Richardson children have all fallen in line with the life prescribed by their mother and their community, but when single mother Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl move into the family rental property, the children begin to see all sorts of new possibilities.

Pearl quickly finds a place in the solidity of the Richardson household, where everything is planned, steady and organized, a life very different from the one she has lived with her artistic mother, who has moved them around the U.S. her entire life. Meanwhile Izzy latches onto Mia, who seems to recognize something in Izzy that her family has neither seen or understood. As their worlds begin to thread together, a local polarizing incident causes everyone to take sides, lines are drawn, and secrets begin to come out.

Today there are many set rules for how things should be done: do well in school, drink eight glasses of water a day, get regular haircuts, don’t have a child out-of-wedlock, don’t watch too much TV, the list goes on and on. Not that these are bad rules to follow, the problem lies with believing that anyone who doesn’t play along is wrong or has made a mistake, as Ng so eloquently summarizes:

One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules… was that they implied a right way and a wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time they were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure what side of the line you stood on.”

The story also had some amazing insight on race, motherhood, and life as a minority in America. I would recommend this to someone looking for an insightful, deep, yet hopeful novel with a building pace, flawed characters who experience growth. If you were born in the early 80s you will probably enjoy the throwbacks to your youth as well, the novel is mostly set in the mid-late 90s.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Published on: September 12, 2017

I read this as: an eAudiobook from Audible

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Tag: Race in America

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng