Stella By Starlight by Sharon M. Draper

When the Ku Klux Klan's unwelcome reappearance rattles Stella's segregated southern town, bravery battles prejudice in this Depression-era tour de force from Sharon Draper, the New York Times bestselling author of Out of My Mind.

Stella lives in the segregated South; in Bumblebee, North Carolina, to be exact about it. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can't. Some folks are right pleasant. Others are a lot less so. To Stella, it sort of evens out, and heck, the Klan hasn't bothered them for years. But one late night, later than she should ever be up, much less wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they're never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come, unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. As Stella's community - her world - is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire. And she learns that ashes don't necessarily signify an end. 

📚 Book Review:

I love reading the dedication pages of the books that I read.  This one is dedicated to her father.  LOVE THAT.  She was also inspired to write the books from recollections of her grandmother.  Just love that their are so many families ties to the book for the author.  This is a great story that shares the bravery of two young black children growing up in 1932 in the South as well as the bravery of the families in living in the midst of the Ku Klux Klan.  "Red Fire.  Black Cross.  White hoods.  They're her.  Now."  Brave story.  Sharon Draper did it again.  Wrote an incredible read!! 

(Review by Mrs. Ferris)

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published January 6th, 2015 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers


Sharon M. Draper

Sharon M. Draper is a professional educator as well as an accomplished writer. She has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year, is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Literary Award, and is a New York Times bestselling author. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Born in The United States
Website: http://sharondraper.com


Sharon M. Draper's GoodReads Blog

Other Books by Sharon Draper

Ghost Boy by Jewell Parker Rhodes

A heartbreaking and powerful story about a black boy killed by a police officer, drawing connections through history, from award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes.

Only the living can make the world better. Live and make it better.Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that’s been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.

Soon Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a boy from a very different time but similar circumstances. Emmett helps Jerome process what has happened, on a journey towards recognizing how historical racism may have led to the events that ended his life. Jerome also meets Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, who grapples with her father’s actions.

Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and socio-political layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today’s world, and how one boy grows to understand American blackness in the aftermath of his own death.

📚 Book Review:

I love the way the story is told in the view Jerome as a ghost.  He is able to share and watch as his family deals with the trauma. Heart wrenching to see and experience what they go through.  The ties and connections Emmett Till are a wonderful connection to the past.  This is one that I listened to the Audio version on my Audible app.  LOVED IT.  Sometimes the audio versions can be disappointing.  This one was not.  I have read a few other books written by Jewell Parker Rhodes; recently Towers Falling which I loved as well.  I will have to post about that one too.  I am going to have to read more. 

(Review by Mrs. Ferris) 

   

Hardcover, 214 pages
Published April 17th 2018 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Jewell Parker Rhodes

Born:  Pittsburgh, The United States
Website:   http://www.jewellparkerrhodes.com/children/
Twitter:  jewell_p_rhodes
Genre:  Children's, Fiction, Nonfiction

Jewell Parker Rhodes has always loved reading and writing stories. Born and raised in Manchester, a largely African-American neighborhood on the North Side of Pittsburgh, she was a voracious reader as a child. She began college as a dance major, but when she discovered there were novels by African Americans, for African Americans, she knew she wanted to be an author. She wrote six novels for adults, two writing guides, and a memoir, but writing for children remained her dream.

Now Jewell has published six children’s books, including the New York Times bestseller Ghost Boys. She's also the author of Ninth Ward; Sugar; Bayou Magic; Towers Falling; and her newest middle grade novel Black Brother, Black Brother. She's also published six adult novels, two writing guides, and a memoir. When she’s not writing, she’s visiting schools to talk about her books with the kids who read them, or teaching writing at Arizona State University, where she is the Piper Endowed Chair and Founding Artistic Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.

Jewell has received numerous honors including: the American Book Award, the National Endowment of the Arts Award in Fiction, the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for Outstanding Writing, and two Arizona Book Awards. Ninth Ward was named a Coretta Scott King Honor Book, a Notable Book for a Global Society, and a Today Show Al’s Book Club for Kids Selection. Her work has been published in China, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and reproduced in audio for NPR’s “Selected Shorts.”

Other Books by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Stamped by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

The #1 New York Times bestseller and a USAToday bestseller!

A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in America

This is NOT a history book.
This is a book about the here and now.
A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.
A book about race.

The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.

Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds, this book shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.

📚 Book Review:

Wow.  The information and historical knowledge that is shared in this book is incredible and overwhelming (in a good way).  I learned so much in the 300 pages that truly opened my eyes to so much about the origins and history of the racism and anti-racism.  This is a version written for middle-aged students (12 & up) based on Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi.  That title is longer and more in depth (600 pages).  Ibram collaborated with Jason Reynolds to create the version written for younger readers.  It is a nice collaboration and a good read.

(Review by Mrs. Ferris)  

Hardcover, 294 pages
Date Published: March 10, 2020
Audience: Ages 12+

Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

Ibram X. Kendi

IBRAM X. KENDI is one of America’s foremost historians and leading antiracist scholars. He is a National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of seven books. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a contributor writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News Racial Justice Contributor. He is also the 2020-2021 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for the Advanced Study at Harvard University. In 2020, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Kendi is the author of THE BLACK CAMPUS MOVEMENT, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize, and STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING: THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF RACIST IDEAS IN AMERICA, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2016. At 34 years old, Kendi was the youngest ever winner of the NBA for Nonfiction. He grew up dreaming about playing in the NBA (National Basketball Association), and ironically he ended up joining the other NBA.

Kendi is also the author of three #1 New York Times bestsellers, HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST, an international bestseller that has been translated in several languages; STAMPED: RACISM, ANTIRACISM, AND YOU, co-authored with Jason Reynolds and a Kirkus Prize Finalist; and ANTIRACIST BABY, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST also made several Best Books of 2019 lists and was described in the New York Times as “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind.”

Kendi has published fourteen academic essays in books and academic journals, including The Journal of African American History, Journal of Social History, Journal of Black Studies, Journal of African American Studies, and The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture. He co-edits the Black Power Series at NYU Press with historian Ashley Farmer.

Jason Reynolds

After earning a BA in English from The University of Maryland, College Park, Jason Reynolds moved to Brooklyn, New York, where you can often find him walking the four blocks from the train to his apartment talking to himself. Well, not really talking to himself, but just repeating character names and plot lines he thought of on the train, over and over again, because he’s afraid he’ll forget it all before he gets home.