Welcome to Litsy!

I‘ve Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter is a tender, intimate and heartachingly beautiful book about race and belonging. If you enjoyed Ta-Nehisi Coate‘s Between the World and Me, I think you would also enjoy this one. It touches on similar topics, but from a Canadian perspective. 4⭐️

I‘ve fallen in love with his writing and need all of his books ASAP 😍

#MonthofMemoirs

https://wellreadneck.wordpress.com/2019/07/30/ive-been-meaning-to-tell-you-david...

It‘s a quiet Sunday morning, and Froedrick is overseeing my reading.

This letter to a daughter is about how difficult it is to discuss racism and sexism and the scary things happening because of those fears in America and even Canada.

I don‘t have kids, but I find it hard to discuss these things and put the awful feelings into words with other adults. I‘m not sure how parents manage.

#PetsOfLitsy #YayLibraryBooks!

I had to renew my library card today, so of course I checked out some books while I was there! #LibraryHaul

I also went to my mailbox for the first time in almost a week and found some #LitsyLove from @Rissreads and @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 💕 Thank you ladies!

Then I did some shopping for my #SummerSolsticeBookExchange! I love shopping for swaps!!!

This book is a beautiful little offering. David Chariandy shares this lovely, intimate, real-talking letter than he has written to his 13 year old daughter. He reflects on her family history including complexities of race and class. He shares some of his own experiences as a racialized person and he is frank about his hopes and fears for her growing up in this moment in history. Such a generous gift of a book to share with the world.

Loving the sunshine and shadows in my backyard and I listen to this amazing audiobook!

Such a very succinct and powerful way to describe how whiteness is centred for everyone and the impacts that can have on people who aren‘t white.

Next up for audiobook!

Chariandy addresses this narrative to his daughter discussing race and how it played out in his life and how it may play out for her. The author has a is mixed race background, South Asian and African by way of Trinidad. His daughter has the added wrinkle of having a white mother. His ambivalence about race and the myriad of ways it plays out for him make this the vulnerable and beautiful reflection that it is. #netgalley

These are my 5-star reads this month. Every one a treasure!

In the vein of Ta-Nehisi Coates (both writers were inspired by the same James Baldwin essay), Chariandy writes a letter about race, identity, and belonging to his daughter. It's a very sweet, tender book that feels almost like you've stumbled upon something too personal, like you're trespassing. Many beautiful loving words. I'd probably recommend the print rather than the #audiobook. I found Chariandy's narration too slow & overenuciated. #CanLit

Inspired by James Baldwin‘s letter to his nephew about racial politics (the same essay that inspired Ta-Nehisi Coates to write to his son) Chariandy addresses this thoughtful essay to his 13-year-old daughter. She is of mixed ethnic heritage—Black, South Asian & white—born in #Canada (as was her father) & where she must sometimes contend with the question, “Where are you REALLY from?” He talks about their family‘s past as a way to go forward. ❤️

I have imagined that you, as such complexly mixed children, might have the opportunity to choose and declare your identity. I had forgotten that racial identity is so rarely a matter of personal choice.

(Detail of book jacket art by Sandra Brewster: “Untitled Smiths 2011.”)

A further impediment to working together was the enormous prejudice, throughout the Caribbean, based not only upon one‘s race but also upon the shade of one‘s skin. My mother tells stories about places where a brown paper bag was hung outside the door, and people were allowed entry only if their skin was judged lighter than the bag.

(Art: Untitled Smiths by Sandra Brewster)