Birthday Book Recs 2/50 : Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
Birthday Book Recs: 2/50
Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
Our second go around in NYC, we first lived in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, and I became obsessed with understanding all the different neighborhoods of the borough. While one kid was in morning preschool in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, the other was with me, and he and I went exploring everrrrywhere either by public transport, by foot, or (before we ditched it) by car. From Marine Park to Greenpoint to Crown Heights to Bay Ridge, we hit a lot of territory, and I loved ruminating on who lived in each area either presently or historically. Books about/set in Brooklyn were my jam, which is how I wound up reading Marshall’s 1959 debut novel about Barbadian immigrants and a neighborhood’s changing demographics that accompany the ebbs and flows of people. But the protagonist is a young girl, which lends an inquisitiveness and curiosity to observations about these population shifts. This is a good one particularly if you have an affinity for NYC and a fascination with how micro-communities change (or not) over the years even if the built landscape remains the same.
You can find all my 50th Birthday Book Recommendations HERE.
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