Category Archives: Series

I have been paying attention to National Public Radio’s book club for young readers called the Backseat Book Club. The title stems from the practice of reading in the backseat of cars, which was a habit of many young readers once upon a time. Last month, one of the February selections was Eleanor Estes’s 1944Continue reading “Models Monday: Children Need Adults”

On March 1, The New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood invited columnist Joe Nocera to discuss the relevance of Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Death of a Salesman in light of the contemporary dynamics and culture of American business. I did not add my ideas or questions to their active digital discussion but IContinue reading “Reading with the Times: Death of a Salesman (March 1)”

In advance of considering Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Death of a Salesman, I decided to re-post the following piece. As I considered the play’s critique of the “hollowness of some cherished American ideals,” I wondered how this critique would play out in the age of reality television. Though I’ve taken my copy of the playContinue reading “Models Monday: Repeat Step 1”

I recently watched Shukree Tilghman’s documentary film More than a Month about his plan to see black history month abolished (you can watch the entire film at this address until March 1: http://video.pbs.org/video/2197967045/). Through the course of the film he learns that it’s an ill-conceived project, at least in part, because he did not give enoughContinue reading “Models Monday: More than a Textbook (Washington’s Birthday edition)”

A few years ago, I was trying to figure out what I thought it meant for black women to be considered icons. This was a consideration that had been lingering from some years prior when I saw Congresswoman Maxine Waters in some setting with black male politicians who all referred to her as an iconContinue reading “Models Monday: Fifty-nine and Twelve”

I heard a woman at a conference that I recently attended offer a view on leadership that I disagree with. The woman, who was the moderator for a panel on women and leadership, responded to a question that put forth a concern about the dynamism of the category woman and the simplification of its meaningContinue reading “Models Monday: Women and Leadership”

When my friend Carmen first told me about Walter Dean Myers’s book The Blues of Flats Brown, I knew that I had to get it for my son. The story is about these two dogs, Flats and Caleb, who are the unfortunate wards of a junkyard proprietor named A.J. Grubbs. Flats and Caleb flee theContinue reading “Models Monday: The Seduction of Reading”

One of my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. stories was one I heard several King aides telling through a montage in a documentary about his life. Maybe this was the place where I first heard about how difficult it was to fly with King because of the bomb threats that were phoned in and theContinue reading “Models Monday: Taking King as a Model”

My father seemed deeply marked by the depravations he experienced as a child. He remained wounded, it seems to me, his entire life by his father’s absence. He talked about him and thought about him with a deep sense of regret. By paying close attention to my father, I glimpsed a fragility of manhood thatContinue reading “Reading with my Father: Slim’s Table (Conclusion)”