BG's Reads

March 31, 2025

To The American Indian by Lucy Thompson

Kalmath River Indian woman, Lucy Tompson, decided to tell her own story of her and her people. She wanted her people to remember how they lived as true Kalmath. Her people’s way of life was diminishing, and she feared their ways would be forgotten. This title, To The American Indian, was first published in 1916. It received the American Book Award in 1992. I bought the republished edition of August 2019.

Thompson describes in detail the beginnings of her people and the consequences of contact with white people. The main contact she describes came via the owner and subsequent owners of the general store along the Kalmath River. The attitude and disposition of the owner mattered a great deal. Some treated her tribe with respect and didn’t sell alcohol, while others who did the opposite caused tension and division among the tribes, sometimes causing violence and overall, the degradation of her people’s customs.

She describes the three tiers of marriage within her people from the high born to lower castes. The value of trees as medicine and supply for food, clothing and utensils. How they built their plank houses, which were sturdy, kept them dry and warm and lasted many years. A village would have 10 – 40 houses, with sweat houses among them for the men and healers. The years of training involved to become a healer and spiritual leader. The tribes along the Kalmath River had a structured, ordered culture and society. Her people managed life in the forest and along the Kalmath River for centuries.

Thompson relates their belief of the Creation of the World by the Creator. This is very similar to Genesis, except the creatures of the Earth are respected, revered and so is the Earth itself, which makes sense to me – shouldn’t all that God created be respected, as in having an equal right to life! She describes how God created man, then woman and next populated the Earth. Her people call God, Wah-pec-wah-moh, meaning Father of All. They consider God an Invisible Omnipotent Being, who rules the universe with an all-seeing-eye, God is everywhere. (Question – If the Europeans were truly Christians, why couldn’t they live with people with these beliefs, similar to theirs, in harmony?)

Thompson recounts how and why her people trusted and welcomed whites that came among them first, only to find out the whites did not want to live among them peacefully, didn’t respect their traditions and customs. They literally caused them harm and took their lands in just a short period of contact from the 1830’s to the 1860’s. by 1866, what remained of her people, ceded control of their land via treaty – about 6 million acres you guys!

Taking a lesson from my last post in February, it is always more valuable and important to get the perspective of an insider, someone actually indigenous to the experience. Lucy Thompson, an advocate for her people, believed in the value of her people’s history, folklore and customs and recorded them in this book. I thank her for writing To The American Indian.

February 27, 2025

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Honestly, this title, The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates, really caught my attention when he was on the interview circuit, and he was being criticized for his section in the book on Palestine. No surprise there, having problems with an African American’s honest review of his own trip to the area. I mean, that’s where we all are present-day, if you don’t stick to the script of the power structure, you are subject to attempts to cancel you as a professional and human being. But what did the author say exactly? I wasn’t going to just accept what was said about this title in the media given Ta-Nehisi Coates’ reputation as an honest, brilliant writer. So, I had to give The Message a read.

Pages: 1 2

January 26, 2025

Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

I always value belonging to a community and network of readers. This title, Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor E Frankl, was recommended to me by my daughter via a coworker of hers. I thank them both for this insightful read. I borrowed an e-copy from the Brooklyn Public Library (be warned, there’s a waiting list) and I’ll probably purchase a hardcopy for future reads.

Viktor Frankl survived four concentration camps. His book, Man’s Search For Meaning, was first published under a different title in 1949, and then in English in 1959 and has been translated into 24 languages, selling over 16 million copies. The book explores why he believes how he survived.

Mind you, even though the author first tells us his experience and doesn’t go into great detail, because he says that’s been covered in countless accounts and he just wants to give the reader background for his analysis in the second part of the book, his account is still chilling, a horror. It still saddens and confounds me how humans can be so cruel and indifferent to one another.

The author brings detailed, thoughtful analysis to his experience – of all the suffering one endures, all the cruelty, where the one thing you have left is how you choose to react to one’s hardship. Do you keep your dignity and remain humane and unselfish or do you try to survive at all costs, losing yourself in the process, becoming nothing more than an animal. The author developed a form of psychoanalysis called logotherapy, where you search for the meaning of human existence and man searches for that meaning. His experience in the concentration camps reinforced his theory, that once a person has a reason to live, or hope, then the hardship of how to survive becomes doable.

Frankl believes this is how he survived, looking to the future. He thought he was at his lowest enduring the cruelty of the camps. But when he returned home, he found out he lost everything, his parents, his brother, and his wife. Even with this loss of being left alone and suffering through a 3-year ordeal in concentration camps, he strongly believed in reconciliation and not revenge – Frankl’s quote, “I do not forget any good deed done to me, and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.” When asked the meaning of his life, Frankl agreed it was to help others find the meaning of theirs.

Viktor Frankl was born in 1905 and died in 1997. Almost the entire span of his life he wanted to help people. He decided he wanted to be a doctor at age three and as a teen, he was fascinated with psychology, experimental psychology, and psychoanalysis, particularly about the meaning of life. He is recognized as establishing logotherapy as a form of clinical psychotherapy. Viktor Frankl was a truly remarkable, exceptional human being. Please give this title, Man’s Search For Meaning, at least one read and share it with others!

December 30, 2024

Two Short Story Collection Titles

The October 10th, 2023 episode of the Levar Burton Reads podcast, Mr. Burton read one of Sarah Pinsker’s called The Court Magician from her collection of short stories in Lost Places. I enjoyed this reading so much that I decided to get a copy of Lost Places and also her first collection, Sooner Or Later Everything Falls Into The Sea. Both collections contained stories that dealt with alternative futures and realities, science fiction, dystopian America, compassionate characters and connections to community. Below are my comments for a few stories from both collections. I recommend both titles.

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November 26, 2024

The Princess of Thornwood Drive by Khalia Moreau

This title, The Princess of Thornwood Drive by Khalia Moreau, was brought to my attention by a cousin of mine living in Trinidad. The author, the daughter of my cousin’s close friend, was born in the United States and moved to Trinidad for part of her primary and high school years and is now a medical doctor living in the States. This title is also the Editor’s Pick for best science fiction and fantasy at Amazon Books. Honestly, I really enjoyed this read.

This creative, moving and sometimes suspenseful novel deals with loss, love and family ties. The bond between two sisters, 22-year-old Laine and 18-year-old Alyssa, is explored, tested and stressed as they occupy different realities after a tragic car accident. Each chapter alternates between these realities, one modern-day and the other a parallel magical, fantasy world.

Twenty-two year-old Laine is left alone with the responsibility of caring for her disabled sister and trying to keep the family home. She had to leave college, works in a coffee shop and also gives horse riding lessons part-time. Unbeknownst to Laine, Alyssa, who is confined to a wheel chair and non-verbal, is in fact functioning in an alter realty, a place called Mirendal, where she and her family are royalty. In Mirendal, Laine and Alyssa’s parents, the King and Queen, are in danger in the Dark Forest after an attack (the accident). Alyssa, cursed as a changel, is trying to find her parents and also warn her sister of the danger they are all in.

Now, while reading I’m thinking that Alyssa is immobile and non-verbal, but is this where her mind is, in this world of Mirendal? She goes to a daycare facility daily and the caretakers drug the patients when they become violent or troublesome. When she is drugged, Alyssa goes further into different planes/realities of this magical world. Here in other planes, she meets creatures that help in her search for her parents. She can communicate with the other disabled, non-verbal patients in this fantasy world as well – they are also cursed changels. This is Alyssa’s reality while locked in a non-functioning body.

To complicate things, Laine meets two men who may be interested in her – a doctor who frequents the coffee shop where she works and a therapist from the daycare Alyssa attends. From contact with the therapist at the daycare, Alyssa is convinced that this therapist is dangerous, means her and Laine harm, so she believe she must find a way to warn her sister.

While spending time with the therapist, however, Laine does find out that he may be dangerous and that he may have abused her sister at the facility – he takes trinkets from patients. She found something of Alyssa’s in his apartment. This therapist, Laine fears, is using the facility as cover to abuse the vulnerable and she has to find a way to stop him.

The bond between Laine and Alyssa is quite strong, very moving. The author, through her life experiences, personal and professional, gives the reader her own perspective of what brings family together through love and loss and also of patient care, physical and mental – I suggest you read the author’s note. The fantasy, alter-reality elements of this novel are captivating, as well as emotional and incorporate some elements of Trinidad folklore – nice to read for a change.

In my view, reading The Princess of Thornwood Lane may lead you to ask the questions – What is happening, if anything, when you can’t reach a person by communicating – is the person active in any way? Are they aware of you trying to reach them and unable to respond, basically trapped in their non-functioning body? Again, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel by talented author, Khalia Moreau. I hope you pick up a copy and give The Princess of Thornwood Lane a read.

October 30, 2024

Dear Hanna by Zoje Stage

My October 2021 Halloween post, Baby Teeth, about the very disturbed, homicidal 7-year-old Hanna, who tried on more than one occasion to kill her mother, is now 25 years old in the novel Dear Hanna by Zoje Stage. This sequel puts us in the passenger seat of Hanna’s disturbed mind as a grown-up trying to keep the family that she’s built.

The novel is told through Hanna’s narrative and her thoughts. She actually still blames her parents for sending her to the institute for disturbed children and blames her mother for her father turning away from her. The few years at the institute has taught Hanna how to hide her violent urges from people better, and she still has them. She doesn’t believe anything she’s done is wrong and still believes her mother is the main problem, not her. Surprisingly, Hanna still lived with her parents, although estranged, until she moved out to live with and then marry her husband, Jacob.

One positive person in Hanna’s life seems to be her younger 13-year-old brother, Goose, who is away at a boarding school. They write letters to each other, where they disclose their inner thoughts and work out their daily life problems. Several short chapters are devoted to these letters, which offers a good look into the mind of Hanna and you realize she hasn’t really changed at all.

Pages: 1 2

August 5, 2024

The Guest by Alan Nayes

I love science fiction. Whether it’s a subject that expands or is based on an existing premise or theory, or something that’s completely fabricated, as long as the author makes it fly off the page as believable while reading. I’ll get on that ride till the end. Love sic-fi. This title, The Guest by Alan Nayes is a great read!

This is based on an existing premise, with a twist of what if. The Voyager I probe, launched in September of 1977, has spent over 45 years in space. Mentioned in my December 2021 post, Fire & Ice by Natalie Starkey, Voyager I was sent to explore the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Voyager is now currently continuing its journey beyond our planets and the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere of influence, sending back images as it travels. So, when I became aware of this title, I had to give it a read.

As the novel begins, it’s late evening at NASA Voyager Control Center, when an anomaly is noticed by a doctorate candidate, Aarush Patel and the head of the Center, Dr Kayla Storm. Voyager I, now in interstellar space, beyond the gravitational pull of the sun, had started to decelerate, and had doubled in weight – how was this possible. Then the sensors showed Voyager was beginning to alter its course, again how was this possible? Voyager I, a body travelling at constant speed in a straight line would continue to do so unless disturbed by an outside force – they needed more data of Voyager’s surroundings. Then they lost contact.

Voyager begins transmitting again a few days later. It turned around, heading back on the exact path it took, at an alarming speed, thousands of miles per second, while maintaining its structural integrity. The scientists at the control center didn’t know how this was possible. An astrobiologist attending the control center’s media briefing raises a theory – Voyager has encountered and has been taken over by an alien species and the Voyager has been altered somehow – its components changed to withstand the journey back to Earth in days rather than years – changed to a strange and unfamiliar molecular combination of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.

Many groups were involved with monitoring Voyager at this point, with these new developments, the press, global scientists, the United Nations, and the military. They were all monitoring Voyager’s path that took decades to accomplish, being spanned in a matter of weeks. The once sleepy and dull Voyager project spanning decades in length, now became very interesting and perplexing. Indeed, when Voyager finally lands back on Earth, in the deserts of Arizona, the astrobiologist’s theory proves right, the probe did have an alien presence on board.

This alien had plans for the planet that did not include its current inhabitants. With its advanced technology, it begins transforming the planet into an ecosystem (atmosphere and temperature) that can support its alien life and is deadly to Earth lifeforms. The military and scientists try everything in their present arsenals to combat this alien but are unsuccessful. Their military force and technologies are completely inferior to the alien that seems unstoppable. Thier only hope is to figure out the base carbon-oxygen-hydrogen formula of their technology and then counter it.

This novel was really an interesting, thriller of a sci-fi. The conflict between the military and the science community with the impending, looming threat was intense. It really makes you think about this home of ours, the lands we have invaded in the past and if we have a right to this planet at all – if might is right and to the victor the spoils. And Voyager I? Where is it right now? Both probes are still out there travelling through the vastness of interstellar space in communication with Earth. You can track both Voyager I and II here Voyager – Mission Status (nasa.gov) and I hope you give The Guest by Alan Nayes a read!

May 31, 2024

Children Of The Sun by Heru Ptah

Children Of The Sun by Heru Ptah, is an action-packed adventure tale that visits the ancient cultures and civilizations of those that are not always read about in our history books. Two children, empowered by their grandmother, and their neighborhood friend travel back in time to different eras of ancient history to retrieve parts of a supernatural being in order to bring balance back to the Earth. During these travels ancient civilizations are revealed, a great history lesson for kids and all, while the protagonists are on an adventure. There are thirteen pieces, located in different times and places, that have to be found

Pages: 1 2

March 24, 2024

NEVER CAUGHT -The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

For Women’s History Month, here’s a title, Never Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, about a runaway enslaved woman, owned by George Washington’s family. It’s the year 1796. The first president of the United States and his wife, slave owners from Virginia, are living in the country’s capital, Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Ona Judge, owned by the president and his wife, first went with the family in 1789 to the capital, New York, and then on to Philadelphia, when the capital was moved in 1790. There she was exposed to a city with a community of free blacks and organizations that helped enslaved people. She experienced more freedoms in the North than on the Washington plantation in Virginia.

In the spring of 1796, Ona Judge received devastating news – she was to return to the southern state of Virginia to be gifted to Martha Washington’s recently married granddaughter. Judge decided to make a bold move, in May 1796, while the family was having dinner, she walked out of the Washington home in Philadelphia and never returned. The author became aware of Judge while researching another project. Decades after her escape, Judge gave two interviews describing her story that appeared in abolitionist newspapers in the 1840’s.

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February 29, 2024

Aftermath by Levar Burton

It’s 2024. For this year’s Black History Month, the theme is African Americans and the Arts. So, I thought I’d write a little something to pay respect to the actor Levar Burton, best known for his roles as Kunta Kinte in Roots, Lt Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: Next Generations and host of the Reading Rainbow. For decades, Mr Burton has been a promoter of literacy and reading, the main reason I am a big fan. For years, he’s been a positive force in the industry of the arts and media.

Burton is also an author, and his novel was cited last year by portalist.com in their article 10 Adult Sci-Fi Books That Grown-Up Readers Won’t Be Able to Put Down – very impressive. Honestly, I was not aware of this title or that Burton authored a novel, until I read this article. Being a fan, I got the title and read it immediately and wasn’t disappointed. The novel, Aftermath, first published in 1997, is an alternate history science fiction that takes place in the 2010’s and concentrates on four characters, strangers of different backgrounds, from different locations, that are brought together by circumstance and a vision of the future.

The novel begins in 2010, when the first black president of the United States is elected and then assassinated soon after, triggering violence and civil race-war that tears apart society to dystopian levels. Our first character, Leon Cane, lives in Atlanta and once worked for NASA as a scientist. Unfortunate turn of events and tragedy, leads him to lose his job and family, and is he now homeless, living on the streets. On his way to his hideout one evening, he runs into a woman being chased in an alley. She slips something to him, and tells him to run, before she is caught and carried away.

Dr Rene Reynolds, also from Atlanta, is a research scientist. Her Neuro-Enhancer treatment not only cures Parkinson’s disease but also helps the body fight and eliminate cancers by enhancing brain activity. She’s looking for funding to expand her project. After sharing the promising aspects of her research with the science community and possible investors, she is kidnapped by unknown assailants and brought to Chicago. She runs into Leon, a total stranger, before being taken and slips him vital micro computer chips for her research. (One thing she keeps secret from everyone – prolonged use of the enhancer produces the side effect of telepathic abilities in some individuals – her for one) Using her power, she mentally calls for help.

Amy Ladue lost her family when the city of St Louis was destroyed in a devastating earthquake caused by the shift of the New Madrid fault. She does not remember her past and lives on what’s left of the devastated streets of St Louis. Amy believes her mother is still alive and tries to find her after hearing her distant cries.

The fourth character in the chain of the story is Lakota Medicine Man, Jacob Fire Cloud, who sits atop a hill in South Dakota praying for guidance for his people, the nation and the world. He receives a vision and knows what he has to do – go to Chicago to help the White Buffalo Woman, a legend to his people.

Driven by instinct, circumstances and a voice that means something different to each stranger, these four people are brought together. When they meet, their purpose for themselves and the future of humanity becomes clear. What develops and unfolds is a powerful, disturbing and thrilling read, with a thoughtful moral message.

The fact that Aftermath was published in 1997 and Burton presents a near-future United States in the 2010’s with the first elected Black president, was just prophetic. This science fiction was a great read from beginning to end, with well woven storylines and relatable characters. I’m surprised Burton hasn’t published more. The good news – Burton recently announced that he will be publishing a memoir in 2026 and a book on the importance of reading in 2028. In the meantime, give this title, Aftermath by Levar Burton, a read and check out his podcast, Levar Burton Reads, where he reads short stories.

Levar Burton has influenced so many and children and young people over the years and has inspired and made me proud to be an avid reader. The way he talks about literacy, reading and the written word with such enthusiasm and excitement is infectious. Language arts rocks guys – Thanks in part to Levar Burton’s contribution!!