Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Summer 2021 (August);

Another recommended pick-up from my APSI summer class. This was a collection of stories delving into the adjustments of life as a colored person, several from the different point of view areas of parents and two children, wherein they are the only two colored children at an affluent white private school. A lot of these stories touch this beginning in different places.

I liked this book, but I wasn't deeply moved by the whole thing. There are certain single short stories I'd really love to pull out and use in my classroom though.… (más)

This a collection that has to be read as a whole. Individually, some of the stories feel too pat and distanced. But taken all together, the vision is much broader, especially if read as "sketches." Many are quick bits, often ironic, vicious at times to their characters. But this is not a somber book; it is not Black trauma porn. The characters get to have a range and the author uses a range of tones that often Black texts don't "get" to have. The overall effect is rich is a way individual stories aren't. It took me a while to get this. The last story pulls no punches and scared me and then left me hopeful.… (más)

A collection of short stories that aren't afraid to look at uncomfortable and sometimes painful experiences. I particularly found the stories on women's experience of mental health and illness really strong, from the woman trying to recover from childhood abuse to a desperately ill single mum trying to work out what will happen to her baby. African American experiences of racism in school, of aspirational middle class parents. In some of the stories characters reappear, and perspectives on earlier stories change. Read in June 2020, the first story packs a particular punch.… (más)