Where is RIchard Wright, where is Langston Hughes, where the hell is Zora Neal Hurston?

Have we attained such literary freedom as to assume that racism is either in our past or non-existant? What is all this stuff about nothing but relationships and girls coming of age? Do we not have books that are not designed for 15 year old girls? Where is the anger that we should feel? Where the hell is all this religious screwing coming from? Have we drank the poison and called it kool-aid?

I won't even read any of this crap now. I am totally dissapointed by the offerings in black bookstores. Maybe if men would read...

you're a man, do you have a book to offer?

You are correct, we don't have books for children, mainly teenaged children, maybe this is why they resort to television and music so often.

I remember book by people like judy blume, and whatever that other woman's name is.

Where are the writer's for our daughters and sons.

again, I ask you Wisdomseed, do you have a book?

Actually, I know that you do, just helping a brother do a little promoting. (check is in the mail right).

however, i have a question for you. you wrote a book, and I would have to ask, would you find that the type of book you want you children to read? (((i don't know why I'm asking, i think I know the answer)))

My book, should it ever find a publisher is not for children, although teenagers could read it. The big problem in writing for teenagers is writing something they would read that their parents would let them. They cuold read Dickens, eventhough Dickens was not written for children. My daughter just finished Great Expectations (Yes I was surprised), it is a nice little serial drama (soap opera) written for newspapers in England. Who knows maybe one day CWD will be required reading, like Richard Wright ought to be required reaing now.

You get no argument here.

You know Wisdomseed, I got through high school and never read any Shakespeare. Not that I would have wanted to anyway. I would have welcomed the opportunity to read more african/african american literature. However, we did have a special program for black students that instituted my senior year. We did have some required or suggested reading. I believe that was when i first read, Manchild in the Promise Land. Actually that is a book, teenagers can read. I also read the learning tree, of course their was special interest there, since Gordon Parks has moved and lived here for some time.

I need to get my collection again, there are book my son will be required to read. in addition to the others i named before, makes me wanna holler is another.

One last point, a friend of my is taking a black lit college courses. This should be incorporated before the college level. She has already read some of the books before on her own. But why aren't these books available and part of required reading for our children in school?

:wave: :wave: :wave:

Welcome ~ Welcome ~ Welcome

Hello WisdomSeed,

I've been enjoying your posts on the forum and looking forward to more. Thanks for becoming a part of this family. Richard Wright (Native Son) is required reading for my daughter, as well as Tony Morrison (Beloved). There have been a variety of other historical speeches (Martin, Malcolm) she's had to read and report on. While none of these were required reading for me in high school it is encouraging to see that things are/have changing.

I simply love Zora Neal Hurston, brought a smile to my face just seeing her name on this board.

Congratulations on your upcoming book! Please keep us posted on its progress as you are in the midst of several authors in this community. It would be my pleasure to help promote your work once it is published. As a matter of fact, we have a chat scheduled with Delores Thornton tomorrow evening at 9 pm ET in our own chat room. She has provided 4 of her books to be given as prizes. I do hope you can join us.

http://destee.com/forums/announcement.php3?forumid=19

Again, thanks for your contribution here and please continue ... making yourself as at home as you wanna be.

Destee

(Vulture) As for the title of this topic it seems so. There is something inside of me that refuses to believe its true. Every couple of years I change up. Social studies or fiction. At one while I was into biographies. I have the potential to put together a novel based on my journal entries. I'm also slipping in and out of action, romance and porn. (a study)

I had a great time in continued reading of CWD by Wisdomseed. Havent finished it yet.

I am so envious of a local 3 year old HISPANIC ORGANIZATION. Nuestra Palabra (Having their say) The reason being is that there is this undercurrent of COALITION. Not only would you see hispanic writers highlighted but asian, black and indian as well. I'm hunting for its equivalent.

I didnt really get exposed to BLACK literature until college. I was arbitary, independent and a little naive.

I remember writing a lenghty noir crime story and read it in class in the 9th grade. Some how I lost it. I also remember a time where journal writing consisted of a couple of sentences. 10th grade. Environment played a major part of it.

There are two authors that really shaped my thinking to date. Alex Haley's Malcolm X when I was in college and the writings of Bell Hooks just for leisure reading. A good mix of socio-political.

What bothers me is the awful rut that black writing finds itself in, especially when other cultural writing approaches brilliance, not simply in the depth of its writing, but in the breadth of it. Right now, black writing is centered on the black upper-class and getting laid. It could just be me. A book was recommened to me and not even three chapters into it, there was the obligatory sex scene. I read 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, besides the challenge of reading it and keeping up with the writer, I do not remember sex scenes in the book, yet it was a very good book.
I guess this is where the black consciousness is, getting laid and having it made, or at least the pressures of having it made. Where are the books of poor people for who day to day life is a struggle for those who do not have it made. I am not saying that the bourgeois do not have issues worthy of being in print, it just kind of sucks that are whole literary consciousness is there as well.

What was the last book you read that was not about a middle class black woman or had something to do with relationship, and I am talking novel.

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Those books were not novels. But the E. Lynn Harris book is, what of it? And what about the mysteries? What do they tell of our plight as a people?

No, I do not know of any black books for children. But there is a spider who is know by the name of Anansi. I first encountered Anansi as a set of West African fairy tales back when I was six years old. I later found that is is much more, a kind of West Africa mythology with Anansi as a trickster god.

Check it out.

Those are just the books that I have read lately. ;)

The list I have are just books that really stand out in my mind, deal with things I have or people around me...

The Anansi spider, I have been introduced to him by the black young storytellers I am now working with. ;) Actually storytelling in general. My son will make a great one. He has memorized some of the stories from the performances we attend. and he is SUCH THE TALKER!!! :D ;)
So he is helping to help me gain exposure to that which I have been before.

I'm thirsty for knowledge...even those that comes from children. ;)

If some come to mind, and this is open to all, please list them here.

BTw, Debbie Allen has done a couple of children books that I adored, has some hip-hop flavor and I also read my son by Maya Angelou. I enjoyed them more than he did. I'll se if I can get those titles. So perhaps Wis, I have more information than you do and this matter of children books.

Wisdom, I read Paul Betty's TUFF and his semi autobiographic WHITE BOY SHUFFLE. I like his word usage. TUFF is about thug type person with a little street credit in his early 20s who decides to change his life and run for city council.

TUFF made me think about CWD. Tuff made me also think about everyday people. What I was doing was putting faces of people I met or seen around town on the character.

I liked E. Lynn Harris's - If This World Were Mine. What drew me to it was that the text was told from each characters point of view via a journal entry. (Basil is a trip) Its almost like a soap opera.

Okay. How do I hear about books? I'm a magazine/bookstore perusing junkie at times. In the case of BELL HOOKS I noticed that she publishes articles/books in a multi-disipline fashion. If I see a face and a name more than once in different magazines and the subject matter interests me I'll peek in or go find works.

That Basil is something else!!! You gotta love to hate him. I've read all five of the e lynn books. "Up all nighters", however I thought the last one was kinda anti-climatic.

We'd have a good time at a bookstore. I particularly like the used section at Barnes and Nobles.

Wisdomseed, one of your favorites people is writing a novel. I get a preview of course. That would be Gregory B Williams. {don't say it, however knowing what I know, it's shall be interesting. you might like this one.}

{{{{{{{Thandi thinks, "I might have to get a job in promoting. ;) }}}}}}

Your are right, I do not like gregory b williams and I really have no want to read a book by him.

Yes, I do consider my book a novel. You know more about childrens books true, I am loathe to even think about what make a childrens book worth anything. As far as I am concerned there is only one book that children should have to read and that is Charlotte's Web, well that and Green Eggs and Ham. Afte rthey read them, they can read the newspaper like everyone else.

When I was a child, I just liked reading fairy tales. I have no idea of what a child could read that would make them want to read. I really didn't care for black children's books. My life was boring enough, I did not want to read about it in a book. I wanted to read about what I was not, what I could not be, stuff that would take my imagination and run with it.


I guess it is just me, I really do not want to read about folks relationships or the pangs of the love. When I think about books that I really enjoyed reading, they just were not about affairs and **** like that. I like books where people's lives fall apart. I read a book called Affliction, I loved the hell out of it. Beloved, I loved that book too as well as Song of Solomon. That is the thing about Toni Morrison as a writer that you do not see in other black writersm her characters fall the **** apart and it is a joy to be that close and watch it happen. James Baldwin accomplished that too, but in a different way. I'll bet that August Wilson does it as well, which is why only the black bourgeois go to see his plays, while the proletariat are lined the hell up to see "Yo Mama's man's Preacher wants you to sing and shout in the Beauty Shop of Horrors"

Me and my little sister drew/penciled in our own thought clouds in those learn to read/vocabulary childrens books. We couldnt say DUMMY and had the lead character saying and calling everyone else LUMMY. :D

I went to a educational conference this past weekend, "Celebrating Successes in AA Education",Keynote speaker Dr. Belinda Williams. The conference was very inspiring, painful, and enlightening.

There were a couple of vendors present. I picked up a catalog of educational materials for pre-k - adult.

The PEOPLES Publishing Group, Inc
http://www.authenticvoice.com
1-800-822-1080

FYI

I wish there was a blackman who writes like Toni Morrison. It would be a good read to hear that kind of storytelling and picture painting from the heart of a blackman.

The last novel by a blackman that I thorughly enjoyed and did not contain useless sex was entitled MIDDLE PASSAGE by Charles Johnson. Anybody read that?

I did not read Middle Passage, but I know all about it. One of my issues about books is either it is about relationships or it is about something in the distant past, or the not to distant past. I think you would really enjoy the book I am attempting to get published.

It is not as lyrical as a Toni Morrison novel, but it is not as hard to read either. Hopefully it will be picked up, the name of it is Cold Wing Dinner and it is not a story of beauty, and yet it is in its own way very beautiful. The characters are all quite familiar, but not is a familiar way. In other words you will see people in this book that you recognize but not as characters in a book. After people read it they get mad at me, but they love reading it so I am hopeful.

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Well let me know when that book gets out so that I can read it.

balisina@lycos.com

But that is how it goes that way. Part of my orginal complaint was that good books do not have to be pretty and glamourour to be good. It is the story that make is good, and I think that CWD is a very good story. As far as characters and settings go, it was a good desription, but I think the story is a compelling one that goes untold today. I have yet to haveo someone read the hwole thing and say it was bad, but that does not mean much, because I never see black people truly critique anything. How hard is it to say that something sucks.

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