Bravo! Bravo! Bravo, GoGAB Teens!
Many of you with summer jobs will soon be getting ready to take a well-deserved break before the new school year begins. For many of you college-bound freshmen, this is probably your last week at work before heading for your on-campus orientation. We’d like to suggest you give yourself a little downtime before you leave, even if it’s just a few days.
After packing, please take some time to do the things you really enjoy. Have a good time with friends. Go to the beach, read and play ball. Catch up on some films, an Off-Broadway show like “Rent” or enjoy a baseball ball game with dad or a shopping spree with mom, and remember to spend some quality time with your mentor. Don’t forget the music; listen to some of your faves. Whatever you do, enjoy. You’ve earned it!
JAY- Z and KANYE WEST “WATCH THE THRONE” LP
The two kings, Jay-Z and Kanye West, dropped the much-hyped “Watch the Throne” at the stroke of midnight on Aug. 8, with the exclusive release on iTunes. Our GoGAB teen reporters informed us that the album and the names of its creators were on the lips of all our GoGAB teens, as a bad, mad buzz echoed all over New York City.
On Friday, Aug. 12, the 911 was about the pop-up store that suddenly popped up in SoHo, at 201 Mulberry St., for the sole purpose of selling the Jay-Z/Kanye album. Our GoGAB reporters said the store was all decked out in shining gold to replicate the cover of the album. Talk about the Jay-Z brand of marketing! Grand, baby, grand.
GoGAB BLOG
So, for our blog this week, here are the topics:
- What do you think of the Jay-Z/Kanye West album, “Watch the Throne”?
- What do you think of the pop-up store in SoHo?
- Will you be going to one of the Jay-Z/Kanye concerts?
GoGAB LITERARY FOCUS
This week, we’ll be checking out two contrasting settings, the ‘hood and the ‘burbs, in the title, “Tutored,” by Allison Whittenberg. In the book we meet two memorable African-American teen protagonists from diverse backgrounds who must learn to work together while trying to understand each other in their uniquely different worlds.
THE “SWITCHING ON LITERACY”/KWANZAA EXPERIENCE
As you know, “Switching on Literacy” is GoGAB’s home initiative designed to encourage our Teen Readers to read. One of the exciting features of the “Switching on Literacy” experience is that it includes the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Therefore, each of our selected books will convey one or more of the Kwanzaa principles, listed as the Kwanzaa Focus, which will serve as a connection to our book’s theme.
GoGAB TIME
Alright, GoGAB Teens, we now move forward in our daily literacy commitment to read a book at home for at least two hours every day. So let’s turn off all the gadgets. Now let’s grab a book because it’s time to “Go Get a Book in Your Hand!” Let’s read.
TEEN TITLE
“TUTORED”
Kwanzaa Focus: Self-determination, creativity, purpose and faith
“Tutored” (Delacorte Press/Random House Teens, 2011), by Allison Whittenberg, is a very smart title that, according to the synopsis, focuses on “Black-on-Black prejudices in the African-American community.”
In “Tutored,” we meet our protagonist Wendy Anderson, a well-educated, 16-year-old African-American who lives in an all-white Philadelphia suburb with her father, drives her own car and attends an all-white school, where her best friend is Caucasian.
We are also introduced to 17-year-old Hakiam Powell, an African-American high school drop-out who has aged out of the foster care system in Cincinnati. This factor guides his decision to hop on a Greyhound bus and relocate to Philadelphia, where he stays with his partying cousin in exchange for babysitting her premature baby. With no money or job, Hakiam decides to get his GED at the community center where Wendy is working as a tutor because she wants to get to know the Black community better.
Wendy and Hakiam are instantly at odds with each other because of their preconceived stereotypical perceptions about each another. However, as they get to know one another, they see beyond the exterior facades into each other’s souls. This is not the case for Wendy’s rigid, controlling, prejudiced father, who is beyond himself when he learns that his daughter is dating Hakiam.
Having “pulled himself up” from the impoverished Black community, if he won’t let his daughter attend the historic Black institution Howard University, you know there is no way he is going to stand for his only child dating someone like Hakiam, who he considers to be a complete loser. At the same time, Hakiam’s insecure cousin is intimidated by the well-educated Wendy, who she imagines thinks she is better than her because she is well-spoken and lives in the suburbs.
Whittenberg brilliantly brings to fore the realities of daily life for Hakiam in the urban Philadelphia setting, with its substandard health (medical, ambulance), housing, education and employment services.
Whittenberg’s insightful perspectives on Wendy and Hakiam, which she presents in alternating tightly written chapters, develop organically. She constructs a sure-footed series of rising actions that culminates in a climactic surprise, as the city wraps it mantle of racism around Hakiam and prejudices breathes heavily from both the haves and the have-nots in the African-American community. And yet, when confronted by a crisis, these same two classes come together to save a child.
Whittenberg’s dialogue is vibrant and real. The romance between her heroine and hero is innocent and fresh, like the first breath of spring timidly exploring an unknown, new season. And as we slowly close this very timely, on-point, thought inspiring page-turner, we feel all the much wiser for having been “Tutored” by Whittenberg.
The Kwanzaa principles rings through loud and clear in this insightful, must-read title, highly recommended by GoGAB for every public library, school, community organization, after-school program, church library and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s new Young Men’s Initiative Program.
GoGAB AWARDS
“Tutored,” by Allison Whittenberg, is the winner of a GoGAB Kwanzaa Unity, Self-Determination and Purpose Award.
GoGAB COMMUNITY
Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced the Young Men’s Initiative Program to focus on a series of issues disproportionately affecting young Black and Latino men in the areas of employment, education, criminal justice and health. To try to combat some of these challenges, Bloomberg has allotted $127 million to fund a number of new initiatives. The program was created in response to the results of a 2010 investigation he launched regarding the obvious racial barriers endured by Black and Latino men.
Among the educational initiatives are $18 million to assist in providing “transformative mentoring and literacy services.” A $24 million investment will launch the Expanded Success Initiative, a pioneering effort that will target schools that have shown progress in closing the achievement gap in high school graduation and use them a laboratory for strategies to eradicate the achievement gap in college and career readiness.
The GoGAB team recommends the title “Tutored” for consideration by participants in the literacy component of the Young Men’s Initiative Program. We feel this title will serve as a significant literacy tool to initiate self-reflection and discussion on a variety of topics. It can begin to help change some of the existing challenges for young men today and, as Mayor Bloomberg said, “ensure that ‘equal opportunity’ is not an abstract notion but an everyday reality for all New Yorkers.”
SHOPPING GoGAB
For this week’s titles, please visit Random House Teens at www.randomhouse.com/teens.
You may also visit our bookseller affiliates:
- Harlem: Hue-man Bookstore (www.huemanbookstore.com)
- SoHo at McNally/Jackson Booksellers (www.mcnallyjackson.com)
GoGAB BRAND & TEAM
All of these titles are highly recommended by Misani’s Go Get a Book in Your Hand (GoGAB) Literacy Group: Kesia’s Teens, Nas+ Tweens and GoGAB Young Readers, and our partners, the Frederick Douglass Academy I, the ICAD-FTL Festival Inc. Literary Division, the “Switching on Literacy” Experience Group and the NY Amsterdam News.
To contact the Go Get a Book in Your Hand Literacy Group and the GoGAB Reading Team, please email us at gogetabook@yahoo.com.