New Feature: The Savvy Book Club

 

 

 

Those who know me can tell you that there's nothing I love more than reading.  When I was young(er) I spent the majority of my time locked up in my room and wrapped up in a book.  Books were my air.  My favorite day at school was book fair day (I think I was the only child who bought all the books off the Scholastic Book List).  There was nothing I didn't love about books.  I read everybody from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison to Terri McMillan and BeBe Moore Campbell.  I love books and so now I feel the time is right for me to share my love of books with you.  I decided that now is the best time as any to start a book club and thus I would like to introduce you all to the Savvy Book Club.

 

Our First Book Selection

I was pondering what should be the first selection of the book club and my mind kept coming back to one particular book.  It is a book that I stumbled across accidentally, but once I picked it up I couldn't put it down.  It was just that fascinating to me.  I like to describe it as a cross between 'The Color Purple' and 'Push a novel by Sapphire.'  The book that I am talking about is 'The Darkest Child' by Delores Phillips.

 

The Darkest Child is a novel that take place in a time just after the passage of Brown vs. Board of Education.  The main character is Tangy Mae who is the darkest of her mother Rozelle Quinn's ten children.  Rozelle Quinn is a very possessive and controlling woman.  She wants Tangy Mae to take over her jobs: days, doing house cleaning for whites; nights, servicing men, white and black, at the "Farmhouse", but it's Tangy Mae's thirst for knowledge that makes this story so complicated and enticing.

 

The Darkest Child deals with many social issues from Colorism, prostitution, and the slave mentality.  I hope you enjoy. 

 

Let me know what you think of this selection and please feel free to recommend books you think should be featured in The Savvy Book Club.