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Booksnthreads (19 KP) rated Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood in Books

Jun 14, 2018  
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah | 2017 | Biography
10
9.2 (16 Ratings)
Book Rating
As a white, middle class American, most of my education about colonialism and the resulting systemic and institutionalized racism and poverty have come from my own efforts to broaden my understanding. The more I learn, the more I am appalled not only by the realities themselves but also by the huge missing gap in my American education.

Trevor Noah's Born a Crime provides incredible insight into apartheid in South Africa as well as it's lasting effect, even after it "ended." I was already a bit of a fan of Noah's humor and political commentary, and his memoir is not a disappointment. He tackles big issues with a sense of humor that does not in any way minimize those issues.
  
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David McK (3372 KP) rated Zootopia (2016) in Movies

Dec 31, 2019  
Zootopia (2016)
Zootopia (2016)
2016 | Action, Animation, Comedy
7
8.5 (129 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Known as Zootropolis in the UK, this Disney animation is set in a world where talking animals have evolved and live in peace and harmony, with the city of Zootroplis the New York (or London) of that world.

While they may have evolved, most animals still fall into several roles: the police (or security) forces, for instance, are nearly entirely composed of predators, with this film following the ZPD's first Bunny recruit as she attempts to solve a mystery around a missing person (animal) case, and ends up teaming up with a street smart, wise talking fox.

With an underlying theme of racism, the message, in short, is that anyone can be anything they want to be!
  
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Sunnysouthpaw (67 KP) rated A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty in Books

Feb 20, 2020  
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty
Joshilyn Jackson | 2012
2
4.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
I didn’t finish it (0 more)
How Lisa was treated after her stroke (1 more)
The use of the ‘n’ word
I could not finish this story
I checked it out from the library on a whim.I hated this, I got to the point where I didn’t want to see if the book redeemed itself.
I’m sure other people will like it, I’m just overly sensitive about such things.
There also was a lot of swearing, almost to the point of being off putting, but I am willing to look past that, just not the racism and the way Lisa’s family treated her after her stroke.. if it wasn’t a library book, I would have turned that book into a junk journal.
  
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ClareR (5674 KP) rated New Boy in Books

Jul 16, 2018  
New Boy
New Boy
Tracy Chevalier | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
An intriguing retelling.
A modern reimagining of Shakespeare's Othello, this sees a Ghanaian diplomats son, Osei, on his first day at a new school in an American suburb of Washington DC in the 1970's. Dee quickly befriends him, and Ian decides that he doesn't like this. He decides to undermine this friendship and dispose of O. Yes, racism comes in to play here. Both the learnt racism of the children (from their parents), and that of the teachers.
This is all squeezed in to a very Shakespearian time frame of a day: we all know that in a Shakespearian play, people fall in and out of love, get marries and murder one another within 24 hours. For this reason, I can forgive the more mature behaviour and plotting of the 11 year old children. It seems unlikely to me as a mother of an 11 year old, that real 11 year olds would necessarily behave in this way; but this is literature and an author can bend their story and their characters to however they want them to behave. The changeability of the children's affections ARE more realistic, however.
I think this would probably be a great book for students to read at school before they access the original Othello. It would have made a great 'compare and contrast' exercise for me when I studied Othello (many years ago!).
Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and the ending is a real 'heart in mouth' moment!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth for my copy of this book.