Mo' Better Blues. - book reviews

Ebony, Oct, 1990

EBONY BOOK SHELF

The production diaries that actor/writer/director Spike Lee has published concurrent with the opening of each of his films are almost as anxiously awaited as the movies themselves. Like the movies, the books - which include production notes, storyboards and the final screenplay - have gotten progressively bigger and slightly more ambitious with each effort, a reflection of Lee's growing stature as a film-maker and, perhaps, literary figure.

Mo'Better Blues (Fireside Books/Simon & schuster, $12.95), written by Lee and his frequent collaborator, Lisa Jones, is his most expansive behind-the-scenes volume yet. It chronicles the writing, casting and filming of the movie of the same name and contains more than 150 photographs (taken by Lee's brother, David) that offer an intimate look at movie-making.

Lee's personal diary of the shooting is interspersed with the unvarnished comments of the cast and crew. As always, Lee includes flattering and not-so-flattering observations. The candor is refreshing and illuminating.

Mo'Better Blues is not the Spike Lee story. It is the start-to-finish story of the making of a movie done in the Spike Lee style: honest and original. Though bookstores are crowded with volumes on child-rearing, few of the current offerings address the particular problems facing Black parents as they attempt to raise children in today's racially complex world.

Derek S. Hopson and his wife, Darlene Powell-Hopson, two clinical psychologists who live in Middlefield, Conn., have stepped into this void to provide help. Their new book, Different and Wonderful: Raising Black Children In A Race-Conscious Society (Prentice-Hall, $19.95), offers welcome advice, guidance and reassurance for Black parents who are struggling with difficult issues.

Using quizzes and anecdotes from both their private practice and their personal experiences as parents, the Powells attempt to help Black parents successfully meet the challenges of child-rearing, as well as direct them to other helpful resources. In addition, Different and Wonderful includes a guide to books, magazines, plays, movies, museums, toys and cultural centers that celebrate Black culture.

As the Powells state: "We have to find ways to keep our children alive and interested while we fight ignorance, bigotry and racism. It's a frustrating, humiliating and exhausting battle that we must win because the alternative is unthinkable."

This Road Since Freedom (Carolina Wren Press, $17.50), a collection of poems (some dating back to the 1940s) written by noted scholar C. Eric Lincoln, professor of religion and Black culture at Duke University.

Racism: American Style, a Corporate Gift (Travis, $17.95), an America based upon interviews conducted by the author with 122 Black executives, by Dempsey J. Travis.

Our New Baby (Pleasant Co., $19.95), part book/part toy, this action pop-up book features working zippers, tieable ribbons, squeaking toys and a host of other moveable parts designed to prepare toddlers for the arrival of a new baby sibling, by Pleasant T. Rowland with illustrations by Nick Backes.

What Black Men Look for In Black Women (The Red Sea Press, $5.95), the results of a nationwide survey of 1,000 Black men, by Wendell Smith.

The Days of Rondo (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $19.95), a memoir of life in pre-WWII St. Paul, Minn., when Rondo Avenue was the heart of the Black community, by Evelyn Fairbanks.

Reading Black, Reading Feminist (Penguin, $14.95), a collection of 26 original essays by leading literary critics who explore the recurring themes and cultural influences that are common in the growing body of Black feminist literature, edited by Henry Louis Gates.