Booklist Online: More than 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers - from the trusted experts at the American Library Association

In celebration of Black History Month, last week the University of Illinois at Chicago sponsored a seminar on the topic: “Post Racial Society.” The question: in the wake of the election of President Barack Obama, have we in the United States entered a post-racial society? Absolutely not, came the resounding answer from the panel, nearly [...]

The noble black woman servant who saves the dysfunctional white family is an iconic figure in American culture. It often brings to mind the 1988 movie Clara’s Heart, starring Whoopi Goldberg, with Kathleen Quinlan as the affluent but neglectful mother and Neil Patrick Harris as the emotionally needy son. What I really love about this [...]

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot chronicles the amazing story of the medical breakthroughs gained from a black woman’s cell line. I heard Skloot last week on NPR’s Fresh Air where she told host Terry Gross that in 1951 Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. A doctor at Johns Hopkins [...]

I was thrilled to read the review of This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson and see how the image of librarians may be shifting into cool. Anybody who loves books and libraries doesn’t need to be convinced that librarians are cool. I particularly hope the news [...]

I wouldn’t even attempt to parse the political motives behind the flap over whether Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) should resign his seat because of his alleged comment that Barack Obama was a strong candidate to be the nation’s first black president because he is fair-skinned and speaks well, all reported in Game Change, by [...]