books on the root

There’s a lot of debate about the movie adaptation for Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” because of Tyler Perry’s attachment to the project. Folks are either supportive or straight up mad. That’s the Catch-22 of turning literary works into movies. It’s great that books, and in…

I like Elizabeth Nunez. I mean this two-fold. She’s sweet, yet direct, which reminds me of many of the matriarchs in my family. And like many of the matriarchs in my family, she’s taken on the role of helping others—in this case, black writers—through her work as a professor at Medgar Evers College and as…

For years, playwright and screenwriter Stephanie Covington Armstrong battled what’s considered a “white woman’s problem.” In her new memoir, “Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat: A Story of Bulimia” she discusses her struggle as a black woman with a severe eating disorder. She talks with Books on the Root about bulimia, her painful…

I know that there are many people who haven’t stepped foot in a library in quite some time. But I know that this doesn’t imply that they would want all the libraries in their city to vanish. Unfortunately, for Philly residents, this may soon be their reality. On its Web site, the Free Library of…

I think Jozen Cummings is onto something with his essay about why Jay-Z should rap about marriage. At a basic level, what I took from the piece is the need for a black male artist of Hova’s stature to reveal more of himself—the parts that are hidden underneath the stereotypical gangsta-turned-mogul persona that he has…

Here are a few books for sports nuts, celebrity junkies, and those who enjoy a good, old inspirational story. Character Driven: Life, Lessons, and Basketball By Derek Fisher with Gary Brozek Simon & Schuster, September 2009 Although he isn’t always in the spotlight, Fisher, the Lakers’ starting point guard who has 13 seasons under his…

is a writer, speaker, author of books for adults and youth, and the book columnist for The Root. Her most recent book is \”The Message: 100 Life Lessons from Hip-Hop’s Greatest Songs.\” Visit her at feliciapride.com.

In the foreword for his new collection of columns, Leonard Pitts, Jr. writes that he finds it difficult to describe what his twice-weekly column for the “Miami Herald” is about. The best he can offer is a line that he once saw in promotional material that said his column is about “the politics of the…

Okay, I’ll admit that I haven’t seen “Reading Rainbow” in probably twenty years since I was a bright-eyed kid sitting in front of the television following LeVar Burton bring the world of books to life. I did find it a tad corny, but tuned in regularly because I liked books. And subconsciously, I’m sure, because…

Carlotta Walls LaNier was just fourteen when she and eight other teenagers made history by integrating Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Her story of surviving hatred, hostility, and hardships to go on and become the first black girl to walk across the stage of Central High and receive a diploma is recounted in…