Book Review

Terri Schichenmeyer  |   OW Contributor
May 31 2012

By Victoria Sweet

Your wallet has been open for years.

You’ve always been generous to your favorite charities. The food pantry, the free clinic, that children’s group, the animal organization, they don’t stop needing help just because it’s not fund-raising time.

So you give what you can. Charity knows no season. And besides, you may need them someday yourself, and you know it.

Terri Schichenmeyer  |   OW Contributor
May 24 2012

By Richard Michelson, illustrated by Eric Velasquez

What do you do when someone tells you that you can’t do something you want to do?

Maybe you beg by saying, “Pleeeeeeeeease??” Or maybe you ask again and again and again until your parents get mad. Or you might pout a little and wait to see if the answer is different later on.

Terri Schichenmeyer  |   OW Contributor
May 17 2012

By: Christelyn D. Karazin and Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn

You stayed home last Saturday night.

The Saturday before, you went club-hopping with your girls. And the Saturday before that, you saw a movie with your mama.

It’s not that you don’t want to date. No, the truth is that statistics don’t lie: there’s a shortage of Black men, and since you’re “holding out” for one, you stay home a lot.

What else can you do?

Terri Schichenmeyer  |   OW Contributor
Jan 26 2012

By Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Bettye Stroud, illustrated by John Holyfield

Who is your favorite superhero?

Does he wear a cape and fly through the air? Or does he have sharp knives instead of claws so he can really mess up the bad guys? Does your superhero run fast, spin webs, jump high, control fire or wind, or is he able to swim through deep oceans with special gills on his neck?

Terri Schichenmeyer  |   OW Contributor
Jan 12 2012

By Martin Luther King Jr. (foreword by Coretta Scott King, new foreword by Marian Wright Edelman)

It’s amazing how, sometimes, old words have new meaning.

Take, for example, a classic play or novel. Take, for example, a favorite poem that a great-grandfather tucked away in a family Bible, a story set in another era, or a letter written by a long-gone ancestor.

The words inside it might seem quaint and stiff. The format may not be familiar to you at all. You might not have known the writer but though the times are different, verses and thoughts put to paper 100 years—or even three generations—ago still shout their meaning.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.