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
01:31about black history month but there's a great Blavity article that we just
01:35shared on Naturally 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
01:48want to see a full list of other books by black authors that he recommended you
01:52can click here. Number four, because it's uncomfortable.
01:56Cora's story and the stories of the people that she meets along the way are
02:00devastating and a lot of the time reading this book is uncomfortable. There
02:04are graphic depictions of violence, rape, treating people as if they're livestock.
02:10Even though it's fiction nothing about it is whimsical. There's a great quote in the LA
02:17Times about this book that says, what is so strikingly clear in the pages of the
02:22Underground Railroad is that we actually have no idea just how uncomfortable we
02:26need to get before we even begin to understand how far we have to go. So
02:30that's it. Those are all my reasons but you don't have to take my word for it. You
02:34can get the book and read it yourself and then come tell us what you thought.
02:37We're having a Facebook live where we're going to be talking about the book on
02:40February 28th at 12 o'clock Central Standard Time 1 p.m. Eastern and I can't
02:47wait to hear what you think. If you want to join our book club sign up we will send
02:52you newsletters about the book of the month and when we're going to be talking
02:56about them and if you want to see more videos like this then share, like, subscribe
03:02and we'll see you next time. Bye!
