Review: The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

A square crop of the front cover of The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah.

Family. That was the word that came to mind as Loulie took in the domestic scene. It gripped her heart like a vise, made it difficult to breathe. She had become accustomed to–preferred–living a solitary life, but it was easier to forget what she had lost in the cities where the families were scattered and hidden. Sitting around this campfire, she could see the interconnectedness of the lives around her–and she could see herself sitting in the heart of the web, adrift.

page 253, The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah
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Review: Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

A square crop of the front cover of Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. Subheading is - The history and persistence of our deadliest infection.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that tuberculosis became a form of racialized violence. In Canada and the United States, for example, many Indigenous children were removed from their homes and forced to attend residential schools. As early as 1907, experts were sounding the alarm that this project seemed “almost as if the prime conditions for the outbreak of epidemics had been deliberately caused.” The death rate from TB in Canada’s residential schools appears genuinely unprecedented in human history.

page 85, Chapter 9: Not a Person, Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
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Review: How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo

A square crop of the front cover of How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo.

The problem is, if we need fiction to teach us empathy, we don’t really have empathy, because empathy is not a one-stop destination; it’s a practice, ongoing, which requires work from us in our daily lives–not just when we’re confronted with the visibly and legibly Other. Not just when a particularly gifted author has managed to make a community’s story come alive for the reader who’s come for a quick zoo visit, always remaining on her side of the cage.

page 30, How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo
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