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Bright color blocks frame the silhouette of girl, with her figure in red and dress in yellow. The author and title appear in large white text across the middle.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

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Bright color blocks frame the silhouette of girl, with her figure in red and dress in yellow. The author and title appear in large white text across the middle.

Review by Claudia J.

For the ancestors, a long long line of you bending and twisting

Bending and twisting. 

Memory has a way of blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, making it hard to decipher the truth. It is joyous, painful, and strange all at the same time. Jacqueline Woodson hits at each of those emotions in her latest novel Red at the Bone. She opens her novel at a coming-of-age party for 16-year-old Melody, taking place in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Her custom-made dress, full of symbolism and pride – fit for a blossoming woman, was originally meant for her mother, Iris, 16 years earlier. From this fact spirals a series of memories, told from the perspectives of Melody, her parents, and her grandparents at different points in their interesting lives. 

Through these memories, Woodson peels away layers of trauma and triumph of this Brooklyn family. By doing so, she relates her story to the millions of black and brown families experiencing similar burdens. The burden of love. The burden of neighborhoods changing. The burden of your goals vs. the goals set for you. Woodson weaves these characters through themes of identity, sexuality, ambition, pride, and purpose. But, most of all, it tells the story of parenthood and how expectation fights reality in bending and twisting ways.

Red at the Bone is lyrical, reflective, and insightful; a poetic tale of a family that continues to bend and twist its way through life. At a time of reflection and healing, Red at the Bone is a great read to get us through a time of significant change. I truly loved this book and I think you will too.

Available in ebook and eaudio through Libby.

Claudia J. is has worked for Howard County Library System for more than four years. She enjoys writing on rainy days and drinking iced coffee on sunny days.

Frankly in Love

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The book cover is yellow with the title, Frankly in Love, and the author's name, David Yoon, set on a diagonal, in a stylized, gradated green font with a visual illusion of falling into the cover.

Review by Piyali C.

Frank Li is a senior in high school, growing up in Southern California. He is a first generation Korean American, trying to find his identity in this world. Is he considered Korean, even though he does not speak the language and has never visited that country? Is he fully American and does the world consider him so? He has grown up accompanying his immigrant parents to their monthly gatherings with other Korean families and hanging out with other first-generation Korean children, who, like Frank, are struggling to find where they belong. They call themselves Limbo. Some of the Korean children have embraced the country where they were born, while others retain the culture and language of the country from which their parents emigrated.  There is a big divide even between the first- generation Korean Americans. Frank is very aware of his parents’ blatant racism and knows he is doomed if he dates any girl outside his ethnicity. As luck would have it, he falls in love with Brit Means. Brit is beautiful, smart, kind – and she is white. Frank has to conspire with fellow Limbo, Joy Sung, who is in the same predicament. They decide to pretend-date each other to make their parents happy while continuing to see their respective partners of choice. But how long can this ruse last?

The protagonist of the book is an eighteen year old, and the book primarily explores his self identity and where he belongs,. However, I feel this book provides valuable insight, for adult readers along with teens, into the immigrant community in this country (or anywhere) where the immigrants struggle to find the balance between holding on to the culture of their birth country while trying to assimilate in their adopted country. The struggle becomes extremely poignant for first generation Americans, as is highlighted in this novel. 

David Yoon does a tremendous job of exploring the issues of race and identity in this novel while keeping the narrative light.  The voice of the narrator, a somewhat confused, sometimes lovelorn, and mostly empathetic senior in high school, is authentic. While we live Frank Li’s life vicariously and shudder at the blatantly racist comments that his parents utter, we also examine our own biases regarding race and racial identity. Told in a partly eloquent, partly colloquial voice, this book really satisfies the need for a light yet thought provoking read.

YA Fiction. Available through CloudLibrary and Libby.

Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at HCLS Miller Branch, where she co-facilitates both Global Reads and Strictly Historical Fiction.