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I know, I can't help it. I'm reading again Everyday Use by Alice Walker. I love the women in this short story. There are two sisters. I'm definitely not Dee. The world seems made just for her. It bows at her feet while Maggie is more unsure of herself. And Mom is strong and able at the hardest of times. Sometimes life is hard for women. If we're strong like the mother in the story, people tend to think we don't have feelings. Our tears are just tears. Another thought is our lives are so hard everyday, another crack in our walls won't matter. Neither of these ideas are true. Women are the same around the world. It is true that the trials in our lives are different due to geographical location and race. Still, we feel the same about the struggles we can not, at times, give voice too. Black women, women from India, women from China or Mexico and Africa are I feel like other women. When we are pushed we feel shoved and bruised like the woman who has never felt th

I like short stories. So, I look forward to arrival of Short Story Month in May. There are so many short stories written in America and around the world. It's hard to pick from so many choices. Plus, I'm still enjoying Poetry month and will continue to do so until April is long gone.  So, I have picked two stories. The stories are from anthologies: One is Black Eyed Susans Midnight Birds by Mary Helen Washington and the other anthology is Flannery O'Connor A Good Man is Hard to Find. One anthology is by a short story author I've never read. His name is Dana Crum. The title of the short story is "My Heavenly Father." It's all about a second grader in church with his grandmother. The setting is Alabama. His thoughts are so much like any second grader. He notices everything down to his shiny corduroy pants, the church ladies hallelujahs and their feathered and colorful hats. He also thinks seriously about his parents' marriage, separation and

I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.   poets.org/poetsorg/poem/negro-speaks-rivers  

"The End of Law : A novel of Hitler's Germany, is a sad and horrible time in Germany of 1933. Families are destroyed because of Hitler's belief that his ethnic group is the master race. It is a time when the unthinkable occurs in one country. This is not the first time I've read about Hitler and The Third Reich. Since History can repeat itself, I can always learn more about this period.. Malice towards a fellow human being is a subject that no one book can cover completely. As one bit of hate is uncovered, another form appears somewhere else in the same vicinity. After reading about Ireland in  Only with Blood: A Novel of Ireland , I definitely wanted to read another novel by this author. Her blend of Christian literature with History is fascinating. The  novel includes moments of prayer and struggle and continued love and endurance in a time of  anxiety. This is not a novel of hate for one country or people. For me, it is a cautionary tale for all mankind. Wit

  Therese Down is one of my favorite International Christian authors. Aware of her power to make History come alive, I had not read her poetry. This is one of her poems that spoke to my heart. One that I will read and reread once again. John 4: 15: The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” An ordinary day. Wake late. Usual tomb-close gloom. Striped split of light, stale meat stink on my tongue. Him, still sleeping but the snoring just a goat snort now, not the camel calls of younger hours. I twist my hair into a snake and wind it round itself, stoop to grasp the pitcher, grudge into sandals, tread through dust, push the door onto more dust, swat stares like flies. Now I only burn beneath sun. A man is sitting on the well. It’s too early for the up down eyes, tongue dart through bearded lips. I smell. Haven’t washed the sweat away or him. I just wanted water. Wasn’t planning on living fore

" H edda Schroeder had no reason to doubt she was content and no idea that Berlin in 1933 was becoming a very dangerous place for thinking people. Her father was extremely wealthy. Her mother wafted about their magnificent nineteenth-century house in the salubrious Tiergarten district in a state of agitation, as though she just knew she'd left something somewhere." http://www.rosecityreader.blogspot.com It's a strange time in Germany, 1933. All hell is about to break loose. People like Hedda Schroeder have no idea what will happen. Neither have they experienced what will come. So, life goes on until....This Historical novel is definitely making me think and to remember never to take peaceful times for granted.

I have a favorite character from Everything Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave. Little Zachary is one of the many children who is sent somewhere safe during the bombing and hard times of England. Sadly, Zachary loses touch with his dad and his home and must face the ugliness of racism at such an early age. Chris Cleave puts, it seems, his whole heart into this character and the other children too. Zachary is so innocent. He is Black. His new friends, white, also face a new situation. Who is this child who looks so different from themselves? Their questions to Zachary were painful for me to read. Zachary answers their questions as best as he can without a shred of anger. Zachary's attitude might seem too goody two shoes or angelic. I don't think so. Like grown-ups all children do not face strange, new situations with anger. However, this attitude could change later as a child grows up. I don't want to give away all of my feelings or the plot in the novel. I just wanted to