Stamped was on my reading list before I saw it was the Nonfiction title for our library’s virtual book club in September. I meant to read the paper version, which I had out from the library, but listened to the audio instead so I could multitask.
I would leapfrog my bookmark forward in the paper version as I made progress. This helped me keep track of my progress visually so I could pace myself to be finished before book club, but also made the audiobook feel more like cheating than audiobooks usually do these days. I was reading a book that required a ton of emotional labor, and I was letting someone else do the reading for me.
Even listening to it rather than reading it myself, this is a really tough book to get through.
Have you been reading much? Or have my book posts been annoying because you’re not in the mood lately? Whatever the case, before you go any further, request this title from your library.
Such A Fun Age was so excellent that I read it in a day, a feat that probably last occurred in 6th grade. It’s not that it was super short or light reading, it was just so good I couldn’t put it down.
I read the three titles featured here over the course of two weeks, and never felt sad to finish one because the next book was as enjoyable as the last.
Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of Teenage Wizard, by Echo Brown, is a book I found in my 13-year-old’s stash of library books from our last pre-lockdown trip to the library. She admitted she hadn’t read it.
I have been missing having a good book to come back to in between all the “work” reading I’ve been doing, and a YA book was just the ticket.
You have seen How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, recommended across social media and on every list of books about racism. In the weeks after George Floyd, it felt like reading Kendi’s book was the action point to start with.
