00:00Hey Naturally Curly World, I'm Christina and February's Naturally Curly Book Club
00:05Pick of the Month was Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad. I've been talking
00:09to the editors about books that we should read during this month. It's also
00:13on Oprah's book club list, it's on Obama's summer reading list, and it won a
00:18National Book Award. This book is a historical fiction and in it we follow
00:22Cora, who's a young girl who takes a literal underground railroad across the
00:27country to escape slavery.
00:33Reason number one for context. We all took that one day of black history in
00:40elementary school, but it's really important that we continue to educate
00:43ourselves throughout our lives about this tumultuous time in our history. There's a
00:48lot of racial injustice and political conflict happening today and it's
00:53important that we understand this time because it's what shaped our history.
00:57Number two, because reading a book is better than watching a movie. When you
01:02read a history textbook you get all the facts but you miss out on all the color
01:07and when you watch a movie you get all of the color but you miss out on accuracy. So
01:13when you read historical fiction I think you get the best of both worlds. It's
01:18really the best way to get a realistic idea of what it's like to live in
01:23someone else's shoes. Number three, to take part in Black History Month in a
01:27meaningful way. I'm sure you've seen a lot of posts in your social feeds about
01:31Black History Month but there's a great Blavity article that we just shared on
01:35Naturally Curly by Doug Spencer. One way that he and his friends are
01:39challenging the status quo of Black History Month is to read a book by a black
01:43author this month. Obviously the Underground Railroad is a great choice but if you want to see a
01:49full list of other books by black authors that he recommended you can click here.
01:53Number four, because it's uncomfortable. Cora's story and the stories of the people
01:59that she meets along the way are devastating and a lot of the time reading
02:03this book is uncomfortable. There are graphic depictions of violence, rape,
02:07treating people as if they're livestock. Even though it's fiction nothing about it is
02:14whimsical. There's a great quote in the LA Times about this book that says what is
02:20so strikingly clear in the pages of the Underground Railroad is that we actually
02:24have no idea just how uncomfortable we need to get before we even begin to
02:28understand how far we have to go. So that's it. Those are all my reasons but
02:32you don't have to take my word for it. You can get the book and read it yourself and
02:35then come tell us what you thought. We're having a Facebook live where we're
02:39going to be talking about the book on February 28th at 12 o'clock Central
02:44Standard Time, 1 p.m. Eastern, and I can't wait to hear what you think. If you
02:49want to join our book club, sign up. We will send you newsletters about the book
02:54of the month and when we're going to be talking about them. And if you want to see
02:58more videos like this then share, like, subscribe, and we'll see you next time. Bye!
