Tag: African American Girls

Swim Team

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Black tween girl wearing blue and yellow swimsuit and goggles backed by blue water in a swimming pool.Bree Hanley is a seventh grader who faces a host of obstacles when she and her father move to Florida from New York. Her dad works two jobs so he isn’t around much to offer support as she struggles to make friends at her new middle school. Bree’s new home, Palmetto Shores, is obsessed with competitive swimming. Bree’s first choice elective, Math Puzzles, is full and the only activity with space is Swim 101. Bree struggles with anxiety, so having to participate in the spotlight sport – while navigating the challenges of being the new girl at school – proves to be overwhelming. Despite these hurdles she makes a bold move and agrees to join her friends on the swim team. Can new friends and a surprising connection to her town’s last championship swim team help her get through?

Vibrant colors bring the lively characters and settings to life. Issues of racism and classism are communicated well in both art and text, which is well-suited for the intended middle grade audience. Bree’s struggles with anxiety are powerfully illustrated with dark clouds spelling out her fears. They contrast with the colors of the world outside of her head, showing how oppressive those thoughts can be. Most of the characters are Black, which opens up the conversation about how a history of segregation prevented Black people from accessing public pools and beaches. The inclusion of resources to learn more about these issues is a bonus.

This comic is relatable to a wide audience, regardless of any connection to middle school or swimming. Many of us in new, uncomfortable situations have experienced anxiety. The narrative shows that finding support in friends and community can be the first steps on a path to healing.

Find Swim Team at your local bookstore or comic book shop.

Genesis Begins Again

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Can changing the outside change the inside?

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Genesis has long been scorned by other African American girls for her very dark skin. Charcoal, Ape and Blackie are just a few of the names she allows herself to be called. She’s heard this disgust at her appearance her entire life from peers and her own family and accepts it as truth. Some girls put together a list of 100 Reasons Why We Hate Genesis – and Genesis has begun to add to the list herself. Her fair-skinned mother loves her, but her grandmother lays out chapter and verse of why light-skinned people are naturally superior to those with dark skin. Grandma indulges in colorism, the practice of stereotyping other African Americans based only on how light or dark they are. Genesis’s dark-skinned father is undependable, struggling with addictions and inability to keep a job, reinforcing the negative lessons her grandmother hands down. Her mother is doing her best to keep the family afloat, but Genesis takes it upon herself to try to solve the adults’ problems. She believes being lighter is the first step to making things better for herself and her parents. She tries rubbing lemons on herself, adding bleach to her bathwater, and scouring her skin, enduring physical pain to help heal her emotional pain.

Genesis gets a chance to start over when her father seems to have straightened up and moves the family into a new home in a nice neighborhood. She makes friends at her new school, including a very dark-skinned boy who loves himself and tries to help Genesis understand how to do the same. Support from a music teacher helps Genesis gain self-confidence, but things don’t change overnight. The damage from a lifetime of self-hate doesn’t magically disappear.

The beauty of this book is its complexity. All of the characters are given dimension, which helps us understand their actions.  The concepts of colorism and internalized racism are accessible to middle school aged readers but are not oversimplified. The narrative makes clear that these concepts harm both dark and light skinned people. Genesis deals with typical middle school issues, such as being attracted to the popular crowd, putting up with insults for the sake of friendship, and balancing fitting in with finding yourself. However, the focus remains on the effects of internalized racism and colorism. This tough story is told well, with an optimistic but realistic ending. I hope it leads all of us to think about the messages we’ve absorbed over time and to be more conscious of the harm we may be doing to ourselves and others.

Find Genesis Begins Again at your local bookstore.

Monday’s Not Coming

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How can a girl disappear and no one notice?

35068534Claudia and her best friend Monday do everything together. They keep each other’s secrets, and even have their own language. When Claudia comes back from spending the summer with her grandmother in Georgia she can’t wait to catch up with her friend. But Monday’s phone isn’t working, and when Claudia knocks on the door of Monday’s house, her mother screams that she’s not there and Claudia needs to leave. When the first day of school – then week, then month – go by and Monday still hasn’t shown up, Claudia is worried but she seems to be the only one. She can’t get a straight answer from anyone, just excuses and deflections. Even when she sees Monday’s older sister she can’t get any information. After being told so many stories – Monday is being homeschooled, is at her father’s, is with an aunt – Claudia slowly comes to understand what really happened; the painful, horrifying truth about her best friend and about herself.

When you read this book, prepare for a roller coaster ride. The structure works brilliantly to convey the story. The chapters cover Before, Before the Before, The After, Later On and several specific months. The writing is so skillful we live inside Claudia’s confusion and frustration but never lose the thread of the narrative. As we and Claudia come to learn the truth, everything falls into place with heartbreaking clarity. We are forced to confront how race and class affect attention to issues involving young girls of color, and how important it is for communities of color to destigmatize taking care of mental health.

Tiffany D. Jackson, Monday’s Not Coming, Katherine Tegen Books