Grand Mothers: Poems, Reminiscences, and Short Stories About The Keepers Of Our Traditions - Hardcover

Giovanni, Nikki

4.15

52 ratings by Goodreads

9780805027662: Grand Mothers: Poems, Reminiscences, and Short Stories About The Keepers Of Our Traditions

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805027661 ISBN 13: 9780805027662

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 1994

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"This ... captivating collection is built around the figure of the grandmother--caretaker, disciplinarian, holder of memory.... It ultimately proves a diverse and moving tribute." --Publishers Weekly

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About the Author:

Nikki Giovanni has written many books of poetry for children and adults. She is the author of Rosa, a Caldecott Honor book, Lincoln and Douglass, The Genie in the Jar, and Ego-tripping and Other Poems for Young People. Giovanni calls herself, "a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English." She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She studied at Fisk University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University.

She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, and since then has become one of America's most widely read poets. Oprah Winfrey named her as one of her twenty-five "Living Legends." Her autobiography Gemini was a finalist for the National Book Award, and several of her books have received NAACP Image Awards. She has received some twenty-five honorary degrees, been named Woman of the Year by Mademoiselle Magazine, The Ladies Home Journal and Ebony, was the first recipient of the Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award, and has been awarded the Langston Hughes Medal for poetry.

Nikki Giovanni lives in Christiansburg, Virginia, where she is a professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

From Publishers Weekly:

This sometimes captivating collection is built around the figure of the grandmother-caretaker, disciplinarian, holder of memory. While contributions from established writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Gloria Naylor and Gwendolyn Brooks act as lures, the real treasures here are offered by relatively unknown authors. Native American novelist Susan Power's mythic "The Roofwalker" explores the role of grandmother as guide ("Grandma Mabel told me that life is a circle, and sometimes we coil around on ourselves like a drowsy snake"). Another standout, Anna Esaki-Smith's sparkling "Ba Chan," introduces a young woman who reconciles her feelings about her two grandmothers, one good and one bad, after one of them dies. Young readers may not grasp the full meaning of some of the pieces, like Sharon Dilworth's moving "A Loss in Detroit," about a young woman coming to terms with an unwanted divorce, or Kingston's "The Magical Grandmother," about a Chinese grandfather who longs for a daughter in a culture where girls are considered ill omens. Elsewhere, various entries collapse into dry genealogies. But when this collection is good, it is very good, and it ultimately proves a diverse and moving tribute. Ages 11-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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