The Coldest Winter Ever*

* Quotations from this book may contain sexual language

This hip-hop novel by Sister Souljah is one of those books that gets passed from reader to reader. It is one of those books that you can't put down until you are finsihed with it. When I taught at Touro College, a New York City school, I always saw students devouring the book. I could recognize that pink and purple cover from across a subway platform. I am surprised it took me so long to finally get around to reading it. So, can a white girl like me who came up in Dallas, Texas get into this book? Absolutely.

NUTSHELL: Winter Santiaga is fifteen going on thirty, a sophisticated street-wise daughter of the local drug king of her Brooklyn projects. We enter her story as everything is starting to unravel for her Pops. Winter, used to a life of protection and privilege, is forced out of her comfort zone when her mother is shot and her father is jailed. She is scrappy, using all of her powers (including sexuality and predatory manipulation) to get back to a position of pampered princess-ness, but her thirst for status and luxury ends up sucking her into the same trap that snared her beloved father and eventually lands her in the slammer as well, having lost all of her friends and family along the way.

My favorite thing about this novel is the language. Some might say it is written in slang or ghetto english. Personally, i find this colorful community dialect beautiful, and satisfying in it's attention to rhythm and cadence. I like the way Sister Souljah spells things in a way that lets me hear the voices speaking. She uses "tryna" for "trying to," for example. The language is gritty, raw, visceral. Experiences are registered in the body. In an early scene, Winter describes herself in a club "tryna" get the attention of a man who dismisses her: "My body was shaking and sweating as anger and desire fought it out." Later that same man called her name "with a roughness that made me want to just hop on his dick and go buck." Winter's lack of shame combined with the intensity of feeling regarding her physical attitudes is at once bracing and unbelievable. I remember being fifteen and feeling unbearably conflicted about my sexual urges and feelings. But this character has grown up in a world that required her to be much older than her years. She has grown up in a world where mortality is an every day fact. I wonder if Sister Souljah's portrayal of this product of the street drug world is accurate. I would now like to read a memoir by someone like Winter, but real.

But back to that sentence above, that hot sentence ..."hop on his dick and go buck." Listen to those consonants. Those short, hard words that skip like a rock over a pond. this is what i love about this book.
I also really like using the word "bounce" for leave.

So, I gotta bounce. later.

What makes To Kill a Mockingbird a Classic?

I am posting this thoughtful essay by Abby.


Abigail February 21, 2007
L.A. – 8th grade
When you mention To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, people’s automatic response is “Oh, that’s a classic!” But what makes it a classic?
At first when the book came out, it got horrible reviews, and people frowned upon it. It showed a very deep, horrid truth that people didn’t want to recognize. The book exposed how infected and corrupt the world was, how unjust and racist things were. It examined how people were afraid to stand up for what was right; that in the end, only one person had the guts to deal with real problems.
“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
So they rejected Harper Lee’s message and stayed quiet. But eventually as the reality sank in, Lee’s ideas got a steady grip on society; more and more people accepted what the story stands for.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The book draws a fine example of a moment of “challenge and controversy,” when an innocent black man is accused by a white man, of a crime he clearly didn’t do. When the accused man is sent to jail, everyone knows it wasn’t right, but they refused to admit it. Instead, they turn down Atticus Finch’s protests of truth. The story exposes how corrupt things were and how, even though everyone knew it was wrong, no one wanted to discuss it much until To Kill a Mockingbird was published.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Usually, when something is so deep and true, people get overwhelmed and they take a break and put the book down. But as they get accustomed to it, they pick it up again and read. After a long break, the nation picked it up again and read. They read so much that “more then 10,000,000 copies were sold since it first appeared in 1960 (Gina Bellafante).” and it is still selling.
An important component in labeling something a classic is time. Has it only been in the stores for 5 to 10 months, or has it planted itself in society for over 100 years? Shakespeare’s work has maintained its popularity and importance throughout the centuries. The Harry Potter series has gone up and down on the popularity scale. Though it doesn’t send a distinct recognized message now; it’s only been out for a mere 10 years –over time we may find our piece of coal has turned into a diamond- , it is a potential classic. To Kill a Mockingbird has held on strong for around 40 years, and is a well established classic.