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Quick Look: "Analog Poet Blues" by Yeva Johnson
Analog Poet Blues is a poetry chapbook exploring connection in the digital age. Yeva Johnson expresses how loneliness and community are byproducts of a tech driven world. Recurring themes include the search for love and navigating queer love, finding one's voice, building a community, and uncovering self through the process.

Meg Pierce
Oct 73 min read


Quick Look: The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Josh and his twin brother Jordan love the game of basketball and they're good at it, which isn't surprising since their dad is a retired pro player. Unfortunately, when Jordan falls for a girl at school, Josh starts to feel like the third wheel and he doesn't handle it well.

Meg Pierce
Sep 293 min read


Black Pride & Historical Trauma - Exploring Genres of Black Diaspora Literature
Last school year, I was excited to introduce my seventh grade students to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. Teaching at an all boys military academy, I had carefully selected texts that would give students a broad understanding of American society during different historical periods, while also giving them stories of young people whose lives or personalities they could relate to. I deliberately chose to balance the curriculum between male and female authors..

Meg Pierce
Sep 2410 min read


Quick Look: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry tells the story of Cassie Logan and her family fighting for their land and dignity in the Jim Crow South. Cassie and her three brothers - Stacey, Christopher-John and Little Man - were raised to take pride in themselves, their families and education - so its a culture shock for them to go out into the world and discover that they're treated as less than because of their race. They don't take the ill-treatment quietly however...

Meg Pierce
Sep 184 min read


Quick Look: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Homegoing follows the story of two half-sisters and their descendants from the Gold Coast (Ghana) from the beginning of British colonialism and the slave trade to modern day. In Ghana, the protagonists hover on the edges of a family involved in the slave trade, while across the Atlantic their family members experience slavery and discrimination in a myriad of forms. Spanning a large breadth of human experiences, the characters retain a strong sense of themselves while facing

Meg Pierce
Sep 172 min read


"Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison: An Uncomfortable Read But It Gets Better
A young black man flees the south and moves to a big city in the North in the first half of the 1930s, where he becomes involved in a communist party or brotherhood. Yet, there is a striking difference between the story of the very real Wright and the main character in Invisible Man whose names the reader is never privy too - Wright sees what the white reader does not, whereas the modern white reader of the Invisible Man sees what the narrator does not.

Meg Pierce
May 273 min read


"Chicken & Biscuits" by Douglas Lyons Is Not a Tyler Perry Movie
As Marketing Manager of Oceanside Theatre Company at the Brooks in San Diego County, I make it a point to read the works I'm marketing as...

Meg Pierce
Feb 7, 20242 min read
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