Grand Mothers: Poems, Reminiscences, and Short Stories About the Keepers of Our Traditions

by Nikki Giovanni (Editor)

Overview

Nikki Giovanni created this book by asking her friends—people like Gloria Naylor, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Maxine Hong Kingston—for their stories and recollections of their grandmothers, then to a group of writers in their ninties for their thoughts. Grand Mothers celebrates those special women in every culture who preserve heritae and prepare the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805049039
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	09/15/1996
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.44(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

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.

Editorial Reviews

While contributions from established writers....act as lures, the real treasure here are offered by relatively unkown authors. A diverse and moving tribute.” —Publishers Weekly

“The portrait of a grandmotherhood that comes into focus here is three-demensional and full-blooded, and the deversity of setiment and opinion as to what a grandmother means is the very quality that makes this collection such an enthralling, authentic read.” —Voice of Youth Advocates

From the Publisher

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. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 6 Up-Giovanni claims that this book is not balanced, as she says of the authors, ``We are mostly Southern, pan Asian, and black.'' But balance is not the issue here: it's the impressive span of these stories by and about grandmothers-from the Civil War to the present-from Asia, Africa, majority and minority America, in all sizes, colors, and ages. Most impressive are the short stories by well-known writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston and Gloria Naylor, some who have yet to achieve public acclaim. The ``Warm Hearth Writers'' Workshop, a group of writers at a retirement center, is also represented, with reminiscences and reports about their own grandmothers. The quality of these reports is uneven, but the lives included are interesting nonetheless. While this inconsistency may be disconcerting to some, the personal qualities of the narrators and the intent of the book-to celebrate grandmothers in a direct, outspoken way, warts and all-makes it a first purchase.-Ruth K. MacDonald, Bay Path College, Longmeadow, MA

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