The Consciousness of Exclusivity

Every step of preparation to travel to Ghana has underscored one message: difference. The literature on TravelHealth.com provided a long list of medicines and products I needed to pack for my own safety. My local travel clinic handed me an eight-page report from the CDC on traveler’s diarrhea. I was also inoculated against typhoid, yellow fever, dengue, polio, and small pox. After this array of shots and pills, I was advised to take an anti-malarial medication. Two different drugs were suggested. The first was a Lariam, which was to be taken weekly and had the pleasant side effect of nightmares and psychic breaks. The second was Malarone, which was to be taken daily and had no psychologically damaging side effects. After speaking with a couple of friends who had taken Lariam and did not enjoy the side effects, I chose the daily remedy. I’m just too old for psychedelics. Besides, I felt that I would already feel too out of place to enhance the experience any more than necessary.

TravelHealth.com recommended a list of no less than 20 items for my personal health kit. I was cautioned that if I try to purchase simple items like ibuprof

Selected Works

1. Nonfiction

DJ Kool Herc
The first picturebook biography of the founder of rap and hip hop, DJ Kool Herc!

America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s
"Phenomenal."–Howard Zinn "Excellent."–New York Times Book Review

Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance
“Harlem Stomp! is a wonderous new book: it celebrates a time, a place, an energy, and a people who refused to be held back and so they created a culture the entire world is still reeling from.”

--George C. Wolfe, writer, director, and producer of the Public Theater, NYC

3. Poetry

Dave the Potter
A picturebook poem describing the life of the slave potter Dave. Illustrated by Bryan Collier.

Contemporary Poetry of New England
“Contemporary Poetry of New England offers a vivid portrait of a region, its colors and smells, its physical and emotional textures, and the people…. It presents a range of poets, few of whom would call themselves a “region poet,” although each has taken to heart in a private way Frost’s haunting dictum: ‘Locality gives art.’”

--from the Introduction

2. Fiction

A Brush with Napoleon
A seventeen-year-old is plucked out of the Grande Armee to sit in place of Napoleon for a portrait of the Emperor by the artist David.

Casa Azul
"I felt like a kid reading every word on the page! I liked the strains of "magic realism" coming through in Frida's house! Children will relate to this very much! The story is charming and reads like a thriller." –Margarita Aguilar, Assisant Curator, El Museo del Barrio

4. Middle Grade Series

Xtreme Mysteries
These kids love extreme sports--snowboarding, skateboarding, rock climbing, wake boarding--and are ready to fight when the right to do their sport is threatened.