We Are the Scribes

YA fiction 

"The world burns and I sit quiet, incapable of anything.  It's a necessary burning.  A scorching away of weaker forest to make room for the newer, greener, fairer nation, if there is such a thing as that.  A nation where sixteen-year-old introverted Black girls like me don't have to feel guilty for not knowing what to say or how to say it."

     Ruth, narrator of Randi Pink's We Are the Scribes, is the only introvert in a family of social justice warriors.  Her father, a college professor of African American history,  focuses on influencing the next generation.  Her mother is  a United States senator.  Big sister, Virginia, is a passionate protester...

     ...until she's killed by a drunk driver...

     ...The family is navigating a tragic new normal.  Ruth's mom, Velicia, flies back to Washington DC right after the funeral service to introduce a bill.  Her father transitions from a bearded, sweater vested professorial look to a banker's pressed suits.  Running the household and taking care of Ruth and one-year-old Melody seem to weigh more heavily on him.

     Can you imagine how Ruth feels when she learns, from a TV show no less, that Velicia has just accepted the vice presidential nomination without consulting anyone in the family, not even her husband who is not a happy camper.

"YOU DARE ACCEPT THIS SHIT WITHOUT TELLING ME!!  YOU HAVE CHILDREN!  DO YOU REMEMBER THAT?  A ONE-YEAR-OLD BABY GIRL!  A GRIEVING SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD WHO'S GONE FUCKING MUTE?"

     In more ways than one.  Ruth had never been much of a talker.  But she'd always been a writer.  Virginia had highly valued this talent, calling Ruth her "quiet storm."  The last day Ruth had seen her alive she'd made her promise to write the truth, even the ugly truth...

     ...Now with her family setting off on a micro managed campaign tour Ruth has plenty to write about.  Only she's lost the ability to do so.  Sometimes it's such a struggle it doesn't seem worth the effort.

     She starts getting help from a highly unlikely source.  Handwritten scrolls from Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, start appearing.  Only one problem with that...

     ...Harriet has been dead well over a century.  Could someone be playing a cruel prank on Ruth? Or could some kind of liberating magic be going on?

     Read the book and decide for yourself.

On a purrrsonal note, it's finally the first day in daylight savings time.  It will stay light out later.  Which means that staying on campus for events will be so much safer.  So I'll be able to be more engaged.  (Jules)

People make things much too complicated.  Why not just stop changing the clock back and forth and keep it on daylight savings forever.  Prevent heart attacks.  Make people happier.  Give Congress one less thing to fight about.  Just saying. (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to you, our readers, who give us such a special space in which to be scribes.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

     

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