Meredith

Similar to Nancy, I absolutely love a good genre-blending book, especially when one opens my eyes and enlightens my mind to a subject or person I hadn't previously known much about. I am perhaps embarrassed to admit my lack of knowledge of Lewis Michaux and his immense influence in Harlem, the Black community, and honestly, the world. As I was reading, I found myself writing down quotes and words of wisdom, and I felt a connection to his dedication to spreading knowledge and wisdom through books. This book does seem to "defy categorization" with its inclusion of photographs, FBI records, newspaper articles, and fictionalized diary entries (as I have deemed them) and I found it to allow for a fairly quick read. I do wish the voices felt more distinct from one another because, at times, I found the words of a variety of different people to mean fairly similar things. I also found myself wondering how much of the Lewis I was reading and falling in love with to be the real Lewis and not a fictionalized one. Regardless of poetic license author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson employed for her characters, this book can and should be used within the classroom. It could provide a framework for teachers to bring in the works of black poets and writers mentioned in the book. I couldn't help but feel myself creating a unit as I was reading, writing down the names of: Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and Nikki Giovanni. You could so easily bring in historical accounts of the assassinations of Malcolm X, JFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, or have students read more about the Black Panther movement, or Elijah Muhammad and the Black Muslim movement. If used correctly and thoroughly, I think this "documentary novel" could provide a strong foundation for an engaging and insightful look into such an important issue and time in our country.

Posted : Nov 10, 2014 06:03

Nancy

I love genre-blending books, whether they are the kind that seamlessly switches genres midstream, or ones that infuse the strengths of various genres together in a refreshing whole. No Crystal Stair has the heft of nonfiction and the freedom and nimbleness of fiction, and I feel it would not be so effective if it were written in a more conventional form. A purely historical nonfiction book oftentimes is limited to an single omniscient narrator, yet the story of Lewis Michaux is also a story of a community, of the intersection of many people's lives. Thus it feels necessary to have many points of view accumulate and layer together, each voice a book in the bookstore of Lewis' life.

Posted : Nov 09, 2014 07:43