Memoirs and more ...

Teachers have been asking us for ideas about memoirs recently.  Here are some comments about several life adventures that are newly published.

A DREAM CALLED HOME by Reyna Grande is a fascinating look at the life experience of a young girl who was left with her grandmothers in Mexico when her parents came to the United States in an effort to find a better life. Eventually, she was able to join them, but circumstances had dramatically changed for her and her siblings. The parents were no longer together and once again she struggled with abandonment issues while also trying to build a life for herself.  Hard work led Grande to college and she writes movingly about that experience and her subsequent jobs and life as a single mother. Though simply written, the book is sprinkled with photos and Grande is so honest that reading it feels like talking with a close friend. While it is sometimes difficult to reflect on the narrow choices she faced, it is certainly inspirational to share in the resilience which Grande exhibits. Highly relevant to events today, A DREAM CALLED HOME received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and praise from established writers like Sandra Cisneros and Luis Alberto Urrea. Grande is a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for her earlier work, The Distance Between Us; both titles will prompt much discussion.

THE WHITE DARKNESS is by David Grann who also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award. In this new book, Grann provides background on the Antarctic adventures of Ernest Shackleton and his early twentieth-century team while focusing on a descendant of one of those original explorers, Frank A. Worsley who was the captain of the H.M.S. Endurance. Henry Worsley was so invested in his ancestor and the events related to the search for the South Pole that he led subsequent treks in 2008 and 2015, successfully following Shackleton's routes across Antarctica. Grann’s non-fiction narrative is a relatively short (160 pages), but powerful account filled with dozens of images from both Shackleton’s and Worsley’s trips. For more on this topic, see also Alfred Lansing’s Endurance or Caroline Alexander’s The Endurance. And for more real life adventure happening right now, see this New York Times' article about how two men are each trying to cross Antarctica alone.

ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW by Nicole Chung is another memoir worth exploring.  It is on my “to be read pile” and tells the story of a transracial adoptee who was born in the Pacific Northwest, placed for adoption by her newly arrived Korean parents, and raised by a white family in Oregon. Like Reyna Grande, Nicole Chung struggles with discrimination and questions about her identity and belonging. ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW received starred reviews from School Library Journal (“Purchase this must-have title”), Library Journal (“highly recommended”) and Publishers Weekly (“stunning”).  

All three titles will be on our shelves soon. Have another memoir or adventure story to recommend? Please let us know.