Tayé Foster Bradshaw's Bookshelf

H ave you every been so taken by a story that you stayed up late into the night to read it and when sleep beckoned, you wanted it to hurry up and complete it's task so you could get back to the beauty of a story?  That is this book, Mothers by Brit Bennett. To say I loved this story does not do it enough justice. This could have been parts of my life, my story, your story, especially for those of us who either came of age in the 1980s or are parents of those who were born in the 1980s. She did a great job of bringing us into a contemporary topic and issue without dating this piece to not be relevant to the teens who will engage with me during The Hurston and Hughes Literary Circle.   What an accessible story she has given us. It is for teens, college students, and adults. Mothers is truly a multi-generational  narrative about life, choices, love, existence, and acceptance. One of the things that makes this novel a bit unique are the at-first-unknown narrators who are part storyt

 My daughter and I enjoy visiting bookstores We went to a bookstore in Waterbury, Connecticut and just smiled at all the Black YA selections. The cover art was delightful and the selections were definitely more than we had seen in years' past. She began to consider what she wanted to read. As she picked up a book by a set of authors we read in The Hurston and Hughes Literary Circle, she sighed. Even as she enjoyed engaging with their work before and virtually meeting them, there was a heaviness that set upon her. What's wrong? I asked her. It's always the same thing, she replied. What do you mean? I queried further. The same story arch over and over. We don't all have the same lives. Tell me more. Well, I know this is what sells, but it seems like they traded one stereotyped story for another. I had to step back from my own armful of book selections to consider what she was telling me. I have lived in this independent scholar world of studying and writing about Black wo

 I have that nauseous feeling, that punched-in-the-gut feeling, that hand over mouth feeling that I haven't felt since 2017 when that demon-in-chief was elected. I am on vacation and after the Warnock-Ossoff win in Georgia, wasn't paying attention to the news. Had family plans. Then received a text about what was happening. We are sitting in my living room watching MSNBC. This is a coup. They put up the flag of a domestic traitor who is a liar. Who has incited so many of these white men. This is not how this Democracy is supposed to be. There are no logical words. This is a coup. These men and women with their children are white and alive on the Capital steps because they are white. They are the domestic terrorists we told folks about in 2008, in 2012, in 2016, in 2020. We tried to tell people. This was not a fraudulent election, this was a fairly won election where that manbabynarcassist did not win. But he incited other insecure little ego, little ammosexuals, to storm the ca