false 119877 205098 0060528494 9780060528492 13 <![CDATA[Jump at the Sun: A Novel]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172673100m/205098.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172673100s/205098.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205098.Jump_at_the_Sun_A_Novel 3.56 54 <center>

In her previous books, celebrated author Kim McLarin skillfully examined issues of race and love. Jump at the Sun is her stunning third novel in which she addresses the same complicated subjects, as well as gender, class, and motherhood.

Grace Jefferson is an educated and accomplished modern woman, a child of the Civil Rights dream, and she knows it well. But after a series of rattling personal transitions, she finds herself in a new house in a new city and in a new career for which she feels dangerously unsuited: a stay-at-home mom. Caught between the only two models of mothering she has ever known -- a sharecropping grandmother who abandoned her children to save herself and a mother who sacrificed all to save her kids -- Grace struggles to embrace her new role, hoping to find a middle ground. But as the days pass and the pressures mount, Grace begins to catch herself in small acts of abandonment -- speeding up on neighborhood walks, closing doors with the children on one side and her on the other -- that she fears may foretell a future she is powerless to prevent. Or perhaps it's a future she secretly seeks.

Jump at the Sun is a novel about an isolating suburban life and the continuing legacy of slavery, about generational change and the price of living the dream for which our parents fought. Primarily it is a novel about motherhood, and not a sentimental one. As Grace struggles not to damage her children with her own fears and complications, her thoughts stray far from the greeting-card picture often expected of mothers in society today. In her bold and fearless voice McLarin explores both the highs and the lows of being a mother and how breaking the cycle of suffocation and regret is infuriatingly difficult, and absolutely necessary.

]]> 119877 3.62 107 21 2006 888177 0786247789 9780786247783 0 <![CDATA[Growing Up X]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179196498m/888177.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179196498s/888177.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/888177.Growing_Up_X 4.00 1 February 21, 1965–Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon ballroom, becoming even more inspiring a figure in death than he has been in life.

June 23, 1997–After surviving for a remarkable twenty-two days, his widow, Betty Shabazz, dies of burns suffered in a fire set by her own grandson.

In the years between, their six daughters reach adulthood, forged by the memory of their parents’ love, the meaning of their cause, and the power of their faith. Now, at long last, one of them has recorded that touching and tumultuous journey in an unforgettable memoir, Growing Up X.

Born in 1962, Ilyasah was the middle Shabazz child, a rambunctious live-wire and self-described “Mommy’s girl” who fought for–and won–attention in an all-female household, a warm place as full of fun as learning, chaos, and love. From the first days after her father’s death left the family famous (and homeless) to the years of private schools and personal bodyguards . . . from studying the Muslim faith to understanding the mystery of boys . . . from coming to terms with her father’s murder to the shock of her mother’s passing, Ilyasah’s life is one of stunning contradictions: deprived and privileged, unique and endearingly normal.

Here is a girl carrying on the legacy of a renowned father and indomitable mother while navigating childhood and, along the way, learning to do the Hustle. Here is a child who was a different color from other kids at camp and then, years later, a young woman not radical enough for her college classmates. Above all else, here is a tribute to a mother of almost unimaginable forbearance, a woman who “from that day at the Audubon when she heard the shots and threw her body on our own, [never] stopped shielding her children.”

Written with great warmth and simplicity–and featuring reminiscences of famous friends, colleagues, and acquaintances like Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, and Spike Lee–Growing Up X is a fascinating, first-ever look at a family many have admired from afar . . . and never seen so close.]]> 363368 3.63 49 8 119877 3.62 107 21 2002 888175 0060505877 9780060505875 3 <![CDATA[Meeting of the Waters: A Novel]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179196497m/888175.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179196497s/888175.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/888175.Meeting_of_the_Waters_A_Novel 3.73 26 Porter Stockman, a determined white reporter, is covering the riots in the streets of South Central Los Angeles for the Philadelphia Record on the day that four Los Angeles police officers are acquitted of assaulting Rodney King. When Lenora Page, a black woman, risks her own safety to come to his aid and then disappears into the chaos, Porter fears he'll never see her again. But weeks later their paths intersect once more when Lenora -- a prominent reporter for the Baltimore Sun -- accepts a job offer from his newspaper.

During the course of the next year, Porter fights to win the trust and love of the suspicious and deeply conflicted Lenora. As they become a couple, they are forced to reexamine their assumptions about race . . . as well as their own insecurities, assumptions, and deeply hidden -- but nevertheless powerful -- fears about their union.

Probing divided allegiances, split loyalties, and the pain of confronting one's own prejudice, this poignant novel presents an impassioned and bittersweet look at interracial love in America today.

]]> 119877 3.62 107 21 2001 888176 0446675741 9780446675741 2 <![CDATA[Taming It Down]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179196497m/888176.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179196497s/888176.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/888176.Taming_It_Down 3.11 9 119877 3.62 107 21 1998 339701 0739423088 9780739423080 0 <![CDATA[Black Silk]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/339701.Black_Silk 4.57 7 5155 3.82 423 42 3198536 4.65 17 1 12936 3.91 8395 672 119877 3.62 107 21 96531 3.17 1092 123 137861 4.04 145 7 2808705 4.09 1888 211 2002 7360161 1428171363 9781428171367 0 <![CDATA[Jump at the Sun]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7360161-jump-at-the-sun 0.0 0 119877 3.62 107 21 3033249 0.0 0 0 2006 7360158 1428171339 9781428171336 0 <![CDATA[Jump at the Sun]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7360158-jump-at-the-sun 0.0 0 119877 3.62 107 21 3033249 0.0 0 0 2006