I'll Fly Away

Birdland was okay.  I liked it.  I did.  I mostly liked the audiobook reader, Dion Graham.  I don't think I would have read it, made it through I mean, by just reading-reading.  Graham really is good and he gave the book a unique flavor and personality that the book, well, it just didn't do it for me.
It is a sad story, a good one, about a young man, Jed, who is mourning the loss of his brother who died from diabetes the year before.  His death has caused their dad to drift away from his faith and the family.  I don't know. It just didn't do it for me.
Oh it was cool learning about NYC's water towers.

Poetry in Locomotion

What a book.  Beautiful.  Beautiully read by Dion Graham, too.  Lonnie Collins Motion, nicknamed Locomotion by his mom, is a brilliantly gifted poet.  The book is made up of his poem book, that his teacher makes everyone write in at school.  Locomotion writes about the death of his parents in a house fire and his life now and all kinds of of other things.  I don't know how this didn't get the Newbery.  Oh yeah, the Newbery is usually wrong, that's right.  .  One part of the foster care story is realistic though, Lonnie and his little sister are in two different foster homes and the sister's "mother" doesn't want Lonnie.    Wonderful book.