CBR17 Book 4: "Kvit Norsk Mann" (White Norwegian Man) by Brynjulf Jung Tjønn

Page count: 93 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Bingo 2025: A poetry collection

The author of this poetry collection was adopted from South Korea by a childless Norwegian couple when he was three years old. Throughout this rather short, but very impactful poetry collection, he writes about his constant feeling of exclusion and lack of belonging. As a child of Asian descent in a small western Norwegian village surrounded by white people, he obviously stood out among the other children. Adopted by farmers to take over their farm when they grew old, he turned out to be entirely unfit for the task, with his grass allergy, lactose intolerance and breaking out into a rash every time he touched the wool of the sheep on the farm. Many of the poems deal with his feelings of inadequacy because he was brought to Norway from the other side of the world, named for his grandfather and unable to continue the long family tradition of farming. 

Even as an adult, he never really feels like he fits in, as despite him growing up in Norway, people keep asking him "Where are you really from?", confusing his identity with other Asian people, side-eyeing his relationship with his white girlfriend (then wife). He writes absolutely heart-breaking poems referencing three young Norwegians with a non-white background (two of them adopted like him) who died in racially motivated killings. He doesn't feel like he properly fits in in Norway, but has no actual connection to Korea either. 

Back in 2021, I read a short essay collection by a woman whose mother is Norwegian and whose father is Gambian. While reading these poems, I kept being reminded of the short and brutally honest ways in which Lundestad Joof shared the difficulties she keeps facing as a biracial woman in Norway. Both authors explore the difficulties of being non-white in an almost overwhelmingly white country, which for all its progressive views, excellent social benefits and efforts towards inclusivity, still has a long way to go before the majority of the population gets over its often very unintentional racism. 

Since I'm currently teaching 10th graders, I am absolutely going to have them compare and contrast some of these texts, hopefully giving them more perspectives on contemporary life for a lot of minorities in Norway. If I'm lucky, some of them might even come up with some clever stuff to impress whomever is grading their final exams in a few months. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is very stark and simple, with a black background and only the title of the book and the name of the author featured. In class, the students had to discuss the colour choices here: the title "Kvit Norsk Mann" is in yellow - the colour the author describes himself as in several of the poems, while the name of the author is in white - the colour the author claims he always aspired to be growing up. I doubt these colour choices are coincidental. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 35: "The Poet X" by Elizabeth Acevedo

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Verse (the whole book is written as poems)

Xiomara and her brother Xavier (who Xiomara mostly refers to as Twin) are miracle babies, born late in life to their parents, who never believed they would have children. Growing up in Harlem, New York, they're nevertheless part of the Dominican culture of their immigrant parents. Their mother is deeply religious and was possibly going to be a nun before she met their dad, whose wandering eye meant he got around plenty before marrying. While her mother goes to Mass every day, X doesn't even think she believes in God, but obviously can't say this to her mother. Her twin doesn't argue with their mother, he's the gentle one, which means X has been forced to become the fierce and protective one, making sure he isn't hurt. Since he's some kind of genius, they go to different schools now, though. 

Obviously, even thinking about boys is completely forbidden, and for the most part, X isn't interested anyway. Having matured early, she's had to fend off catcalls and felt embarrassed about her body since early puberty. But then there's her new lab partner. He's different. 

X lives for poetry, she writes it all down in a leather-bound journal given to her by her twin. She pours out all her dreams, fears, longing, and passion on the pages, making very sure to keep it hidden from her parents. Her new English teacher notices X's affinity for poetry and verse and invites her to join the slam poetry club. But poetry club is on the same night as X's confirmation classes, and there's no way X's mama is ever going to let her choose poetry over God. 

This book has been nominated for and has won so many various literary prizes that at least one of the covers I've seen is more or less covered in golden labels. I've heard of it a lot over the years since it came out in 2018, but somehow, I convinced myself that reading a novel created entirely in verse would be too difficult, or something. I don't really have a good excuse, except the fact that my digital library and my TBR lists are so long now that I get very easily distracted, and there's always something newer and shinier out there to distract me. 

This book made me smile, it made me want to hug both Xiomara and her brother, it made me want to yell at her mother and it actually had me gasping out loud, not to mention ugly crying in parts. I'm amazed at how much tension, plot development, character growth, and emotion this book managed, while all the chapters, each a poem of about a page or a page and a half, are short and easy to just speed through. No long descriptive passages and all the interior monologues of our protagonist come out in the pages of her poetry. 

The book made me feel all the feels, and I'm glad that thanks to my DuoLingo Spanish lessons I actually understood most of the Spanish that Xiomara intersperses her English with. I am sorry it took me so long to get around to reading the book, but the upside is that I now have two other Elizabeth Acevedo books to look forward to, as well. 

Judging a book by its cover: I think the cover is a little bit too generically YA, considering the amazing contents of the book. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's very similar to so many other YA books. This book is remarkable and deserves to stand out. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 21: "Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson

Page count: 368 pages
Audiobook length: 3 hrs 55 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description:
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

This unusual autobiography, written in verse, is absolutely lovely. I chose to listen to it in audiobook, narrated by Ms. Woodson herself, mainly because I find poetry is always more accessible when it's read to me, rather than when I have to read it myself. Possibly my only complaint with this book is that it was much shorter than I was expecting, mainly because it's by no means a full autobiography of Ms. Woodson's life. It covers her childhood and adolescence and tells the story of how, although she had big problems learning to read, she found a love of books and stories and became determined to become an author.

A book written in verse may seem a bit daunting, but the language that Ms. Woodson uses throughout is descriptive, evocative, and in no way dense. Each chapter is relatively short, so you can easily break up your read if you want to. I found the short chapters made it even more tempting to keep going for longer, which made me finish the book sooner than I was expecting.

In general, while parts of Ms. Woodson's early years were sad and dramatic, most of the stories in this book are hopeful and heartwarming. I can easily understand why the book has been so critically acclaimed and been nominated for and won a ton of awards. I suspect this is the sort of book that will work very well for a number of reading challenges - written by an African American woman, dealing with various kinds of marginalisation and racism, it's autobiographical, it's aimed at YA/middle-grade readers, it's won a bunch of awards AND it's written in verse.

Judging a book by its cover: It's almost difficult to find an image of the plain cover for this book, considering that the standard cover now seems to be covered in little medals announcing the many awards this book has won or been nominated for. The silhouette of the little girl, reading a book, and butterflies and golden swirls seemingly erupting from its pages seems very appropriate. The colours of the sky behind the girl are lovely and evoke hopefulness and optimism, in my mind.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 95: "GMorning, GNight!: Little pep talks for me & you" by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonny Sun

Page count: 207 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description:
"Good morning. Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life today. Make, do, create the things. Let others tussle it out. Vamos!"

Before he inspired the world with Hamilton and was catapulted to international fame, Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspiring his Twitter followers with words of encouragement at the beginning and end of each day. He wrote these original sayings, aphorisms, and poetry for himself as much as for others. But as Miranda's audience grew, these messages took on a life on their own. Now, at the request of countless fans, Miranda has gathered the best of his daily greetings into a beautiful collection illustrated by acclaimed artist (and fellow Twitter favorite) Jonny Sun. Full of comfort and motivation, Gmorning, Gnight! is a touchstone for anyone looking for a lift.

I see on Goodreads that some people absolutely loved and adored this book, while others felt it was a cheap and underwhelming effort from Miranda, trying to cash in further on his fame. I think I'm much more in the former category, and as someone who has followed Miranda on Twitter for a long time, and have enjoyed his inspirational little tweets in "real time", I was very excited when I learned that many of them were to be collected in a book.

It may also be that I was reading through these during a stressful and emotionally exhausting period in my life, but a lot of these little poems truly spoke to me and made me feel so much better. I'm not lying when I say that I cried more than once when reading, just as I smiled. Some of these sayings may be trite and simple, but I believe the intention behind them is to help, to support, to inspire and to cheer up and for me, they more often than not made me feel better and motivated and inspired, rather than annoyed, as some people seem to have gotten. Miranda seems to me as a person who works really hard to try to stay positive, even when the world around us is doing its damnedest to wear us down. These little Twitter verses is one of the ways in which he fights the gloom, and I'm thankful for that.

Some of the illustrations in the book are better than others. With the simple black and white line drawings, it would probably work as a colouring book, as well, if one wanted to use it as such.

Judging a book by its cover: This book has a relatively simple cover, it's one of the illustrations made by Jonny Sun for one of the tweets collected in the book. I like his drawing style. It's very clear and no-nonsense.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 89: "Milk and Honey" by Rupi Kaur

Page count: 208 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:
milk and honey is a
collection of poetry about
love
loss
trauma
abuse
healing
and femininity
it is split into four chapters
each chapter serves a different purpose
deals with a different pain
heals a different heartache
milk and honey takes readers through
a journey of the most bitter moments in the life
and finds sweetness in them
because there is sweetness everywhere
if you are just willing to look

Poetry is just one of those genres I don't really read, at all. So when the Diversify Your Reading Challenge asked me to read one or more collections of poetry in November, I was initially a bit stumped. However, one of my keywords in my Monthly Keyword Challenge (so many reading challenges, you guys!) for November was food, and this poetry collection, which is very highly rated on Goodreads, by a woman of colour I had actually heard of even before I picked up the book, fit perfectly.

Obviously, this was a very quick read. I have to be honest, and say that in the first section, which deals with sexual abuse and trauma, I mostly skimmed the poems to get through quickly, because I do not have the mental head space to deal with that right now. The other sections were nowhere near as traumatic, and some of the poems are absolutely lovely.

I can see on Goodreads that while some people have found the contents of the book rather trite and cliched and simple, a whopping 49% have rated the collection a full 5 stars. I would not quite go that far with effusive praise, but as I said, poetry just really isn't a genre that tends to do much for me. I'm glad this reading challenge made me open up to something new, but I still don't see myself reading a lot of verse in the years to come.

Judging a book by its cover: It's not exactly the most exciting of covers, but the bees make you think of honey, which is, after all, highly relevant to the title. The illustrations on the cover are in the same simple style as the ones throughout the volume, accompanying the poetry.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.