Two powerful and important reads …

REST IN POWER by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin

I began reading REST IN POWER by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin this past Sunday, Feb. 5th on what coincidentally would have been Trayvon Martin’s 22nd birthday. He was killed in 2012 just a few weeks after turning 17 and this story, told in alternating chapters by his parents, tells of the days before the shooting and the trial afterwards. Readers will be moved by the understated tone and calm presentation of Trayvon’s story and his parents’ efforts to not forget and to find meaning in his death. They say REST IN POWER was written “in the hope for healing, for bridging the divide that separates America, between races and classes, between citizens and the police.”   

This message clearly resonated with Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, who noted, “Not since Emmitt Till has a parent's love for a murdered child moved the nation to search its soul about racial injustice and inequality. Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin's extraordinary witness, indomitable spirit and unwavering demand for change have altered the dynamics of racial justice discourse in this country. This powerful book illuminates the witness, the grief, and the commitment to reform that Trayvon Martin’s death has mobilized; it is a story fueled by a demand for justice but rooted in love.”

REST IN POWER received starred reviews from both Booklist and Kirkus.

THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL by Timothy B. Tyson

Undoubtedly you heard the news last week that Carolyn Bryant Donham had recanted her statements about Emmett Till’s actions prior to his horrific death over 60 years ago.  In 2008, she told Duke University historian and author Timothy B. Tyson that “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”  And Tyson has crafted a new book, THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL , based on her interview and many others, plus recently recovered court transcripts.  In fact, roughly a fourth of this almost 300 page book is bibliography, notes and index.  PBS’ American Experience has an extensive set of web pages devoted to The Murder of Emmett Till, including his killers’ subsequent confession which was published in Look  magazine in 1956.  

Tyson’s book covers the Emmett Till story, but also explains the political history of how those events prompted the modern civil rights movement and refers to many recent sad events involving racial profiling and violence.  THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL received a starred review from Booklist. We have numerous books and videos available in the library about Emmett Till including A Wreath for Emmett Till filled with 15 beautiful sonnets by Marilyn Nelson and Death of Innocence by Mamie Till-Mobley, another parent writing about a son’s too early death.

THE REFUGEES by Viet Thanh Nguyen

THE REFUGEES by Viet Thanh Nguyen is an extremely well-written collection of emotional stories which received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.  Although somewhat sophisticated for many of our high school readers, THE REFUGEES does explore themes of assimilation, family, identity, and loneliness.  Viet Thanh Nguyen provides selections such as “Black-Eyed Women” which is a ghost story about losing a brother during the family’s horrifying boat escape or “The Other Man” in which a gay couple invites a Vietnamese refugee into their home and he struggles with language and cultural differences.   

As I prepared the review for this book, I was surprised to see the number of recently published books about refugees, particularly those intended for younger students.  If you are searching for lesson plans about refugees, consider this one for high schoolers which also deals with media bias and was made available last week by the Choices Program at Brown University.   

Viet Thanh Nguyen received numerous awards, including the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, for The Sympathizer which some of our students have used as a main text for Junior Theme.  Enjoy THE REFUGEES, since as Nguyen says, “Stories are just things we fabricate, nothing more.  We search for them in a word besides our own, then leave them here to be found, garments shed by ghosts.” 

Airbnb and Uber stories

THE UPSTARTS by Brad Stone is an entertaining read filled with stories about the short and yet amazing histories of Airbnb and Uber. In his newest work, Stone chronicles events influencing the sharing economy and the founders’ attitudes.  He quotes Brian Chesky who says, “Every great start-up starts as a side project that isn’t anybody’s main priority. Airbed & Breakfast was a way to pay our rent.” As Stone describes them, the more volatile personality belongs to Uber’s Travis Kalanick, in the news this past week due to his decision to leave Trump’s advisory business board.

Stone devotes part of THE UPSTARTS to firms (e.g., HomeAway, VRBO, TaxiMagic) in the competitive space that did not succeed to the same extent, although they, too, had the potential to be a disruptive force. And he quotes others describing the creativity, adaptiveness, and mental toughness of entrepreneurs: “the ability to overcome the hurdles and negativity that typically accompanies something new.” A senior executive editor for technology at Bloomberg News, Stone also wrote an award-winning The Everything Store about Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Kirkus says Stone’s THE UPSTARTS is “highly useful reading for budding entrepreneurs” and we will certainly recommend this book to our Business classes and other interested readers.

If you prefer the focus to be exclusively on one company, THE AIRBNB STORY will be published in mid-February. Written by Leigh Gallagher from Fortune magazine, this work seems more analytical and less chronological.  She includes some fascinating facts, though, like the statistic that 1.8 million people were staying in an Airbnb hosted property on a single night in August 2016.  That certainly illustrates Airbnb’s growth and speaks to the power of connection across the internet, although Gallagher explores debates over increasing regulation, too. 

She writes about three phases of Airbnb’s development from couch-surfing, to quirky locales like igloos and castles and then on to the “Gwyneth Paltrow” phase with something for everyone and only a quarter of the business in the United States. Amongst the chapter titles are “Building a Company,” “Airbnb Nation,” and “What’s Next” – that’s where Gallagher describes the recently announced Trips option designed to provide special excursions and help guests to live more like a local. THE AIRBNB STORY tells readers “How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions … and Created Plenty of Controversy.”