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A review by howlinglibraries
Open Mic: Riffs on Life Between Cultures in Ten Voices by Mitali Perkins
4.0
This was my first assigned read for my summer master's degree program course, Multicultural Youth Literature, and I have to say it was a solid start to the reading list! I won't be doing full reviews for most of the books on my reading list, but I did enjoy this one enough to give you a quick rundown. (Unfortunately, I just don't think the pieces in this collection were meaty enough to give a story-by-story breakdown like I usually do with anthologies.)
Open Mic is a short anthology collection of a mixture of nonfiction and fiction own-voice stories about being a teen of color in today's world. There are sad stories, happy stories, funny ones, and downright infuriating ones (in the sense of, "How do we live in a world where people still treat each other this poorly?!").
My notable favorites were:
All of the stories in this collection are worth a read, though, and I strongly encourage you to pick it up! The teens represented in the anthology range from black, Asian, Latinx, Haitian, Indian, and more.
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Time to start my first assigned read for my summer MLIS course! I haven't had assigned reading in a veeeeeery long time...
Open Mic is a short anthology collection of a mixture of nonfiction and fiction own-voice stories about being a teen of color in today's world. There are sad stories, happy stories, funny ones, and downright infuriating ones (in the sense of, "How do we live in a world where people still treat each other this poorly?!").
My notable favorites were:
Why I Won't Be Watching the Last Airbender Movie by Gene Luen Yang:
A very short comic about how boycotting the whitewashed A:TLA film adaptation landed Gene his role as the creator of the incredible A:TLA graphic novels! This one struck me especially, because I've been a huge fan of A:TLA since the day it first aired, and, well... there is no movie in Ba Sing Se!
Brotherly Love by Francisco X. Stork:
A piece that felt as though it could've been fiction or nonfiction, regarding toxic masculinity and homophobia in a Latinx family, and the love that siblings have for one another. This one was absolutely precious.
All of the stories in this collection are worth a read, though, and I strongly encourage you to pick it up! The teens represented in the anthology range from black, Asian, Latinx, Haitian, Indian, and more.
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Time to start my first assigned read for my summer MLIS course! I haven't had assigned reading in a veeeeeery long time...