Summer Farewell--Whew!

Going to take a breather to re-up.  Wishing you a healthy summer full of good reads.  See you back here in September! --The Passages Academy Library Team  

Why Juneteenth Matters (re-posted from The Brown Bookshelf)

 If you only read one blogpost on the subject, I highly recommend this one by Kelly Starling Lyons and Torrey Maldonado, featuring the voices of some of Passages' favorites, including Coe Booth, Zetta Elliot, Rita Williams-Garcia and Cheryl Willis Hudson.  Many thanks to Esther Keller for sharing it.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson

In writing this book, I wanted to be as authentic and truthful about my experience as possible.  I wanted my story to be told in totality: the good, the bad, and the things I was too afraid to talk about publicly.  This meant going to places and discussing some subjects that are often kept away from teens for fear of them being “too heavy.”

So begins Johnson as he introduces his memoir manifesto with an author’s note.  As the reader wades in, the heaviness is inevitable, but what Johnson’s first words do not prepare the reader for are the love and joy he conveys in describing his beautiful close knit family and their senses of humor and fierce devotion to one another.  

After his note and introduction, the author breaks his story up into four “acts,” collections of essays relayed in a conversational tone to a young adult audience.  He concludes with an afterword.  Teachers may wish to simply share the Introduction to bring this essential voice of our time into the classroom and allow students to select to read it in full as independent reading.  --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Johnson, George M.  All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson

Click here for discussion questions from the loft.org.