Reviews for this week include historical heroes The Black Angels and young adult novels celebrating cultures around the world.
THE BLACK ANGELS
The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis
by Maria Smilios
Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons (September 19, 2023)
Hardcover $25.99
Audiobook $12.99
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
A century before we were worried about COVID-19, another disease was killing millions of people around the world. The disease was tuberculosis, and 1 in every 7 people died from it. There was no cure, and hospitals were overwhelmed with patients. The tenements in New York City were especially hit by the disease. So, a special hospital named Sea View was built on Staten Island to take care of the mostly indigent, immigrant, and black patients who could not afford private sanitoriums.
Around 1929, the white nurses who worked there began to quit, finding other jobs in the segregated NYC hospitals. A call for black nurses was put out to cities and areas in the South. The ads promised housing, pay, and training, and many black women with no hope of a future in the South packed up their few belongings and got on a train headed north.
Maria Smilios tells the story of the care, abuse, and victories these nurses experienced. Through nurses like Edna Sutton Ballard, we learn about the almost 2000 patients at Sea View. The nurses were not allowed to wear masks or gowns. They were spat upon and exposed to the virus in countless ways. “A single sneeze blasted forty thousand infected droplets twenty-seven feet into the air at a hundred miles an hour, and a cough sent out three thousand of them.” They faced segregated dining halls and the inability to join with white nurses for better pay and working conditions. They assisted with surgeries like removing ribs, lung resections, and nerve crushes.
While the nurses cared for the ill, they also tried to find homes for themselves and their families on Staten Island. They were met with hostility, lawsuits, and even the KKK. With their small salaries they managed to find lawyers and work with the NAACP to eventually win most of those fights.
The details about the disease – which I always thought only affected the lungs – are extensive and hard to follow at times. Research at various labs and by several doctors trying to find a cure is also included. Competition, the lack of FDA oversight, the actual poisoning of patients by “medicines” that were not properly tested are also covered in depth. But overall, the story is well-told, compelling, and eye-opening.
The compassion of the nurses is amazing. Missouria Louvinia Walker Meadows, who came to Sea View from South Carolina, was assigned to the men’s ward, one of the worst locations. She tended to a German POW there who refused to speak to her and spit on her. One man yelled and screamed at her when she shaved him. Yet when another man died, she quietly and carefully washed his body with reverence while singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” believing that the dead should be treated with respect.
Medical research came up with a successful treatment in the early 1950s, and Sea View’s last patient walked out in 1961. Today, most of the buildings have been razed or are falling down. Tuberculosis, however, continues to be the second leading infectious disease in the world and more than a million people die from it annually.
The nurses at Sea View were unsung heroes from the 1920s, through the Depression and WWII who tended the ill and fought racism at work and home. The author gives them the long-overdue recognition for their selfless dedication and commitment to those who suffered. They were indeed, as many of their patients called them, the Black Angels.
Penny A Parrish is a long-time book reviewer and artist. Learn more about her by visiting her page at Brush Strokes Gallery, which is in downtown Fredericksburg.
RICK RIORDAN PRESENTS –
A new imprint highlighting cultures and mythologies from around the world.
Reviewed by Nathan Sekinger
Author, Rick Riordan, famous for making Greek gods cool again with his novel Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, has turned his focus over the last few years to publishing.
Working with Disney Hyperion, the “Rick Riordan Presents” imprint includes numerous titles that invite readers to discover fantasy novels where mythology comes to life. while teen characters discover powers and agency of their own.
The settings extend from the ordinary to the other-dimensional, and end-of-the-world problems are solved with teen angst, agency, and lots of action.
Two reviews of books in the series follow.
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky
by Kwame Mbalia
Published by Disney Hyperion (October 15, 2019)
Paperback $8.99
Audiobook $10.49
Tristan is grieving from the death of his best friend when he is invited to stay with his grandparents on their farm in Alabama. When a journal, the last keepsake from his friend, gets stolen by a mysterious figure, Tristan goes after the journal and the fleeing figure.
Using his boxing skills in an attempt to get it back, Tristan destroys part of the bottle tree on the farm’s property, unleashing a haunt and bringing him into a mythical world that combines African mythology and African American folklore.
Characters like Briar Rabbit and Gum Baby become unlikely allies to Tristan as he is compelled to heal the world that he has helped to damage. His quest involves the African trickster god, Anansi, and the power of stories.
Tristan better get his stories straight as he fights for his life and wrestles with the role of trying to be a hero. Tristan is a likable character who struggles with grief as he works to recover from his own loss while helping to save others.
Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting
by Roseanne A. Brown
Published by Disney Hyperion (September 6. 2022)
Paperback $7.50
Audiobook $7.49
Serwa is a full-time vampire hunter. At the age of twelve and trained by her parents, this is the only life she’s ever known. And these vampires are not the sparkly kind. They can possess humans or attack in their grotesque and blood sucking form, called “adze” from west African folklore.
When an evil magic user breaks through the family’s protective bonds, nowhere is safe for Serwa and her parents.
Serwa is dropped off with a distant family member in an ordinary town in Maryland so her parents can chase the danger, but things don’t stay ordinary for long. Serwa is trying to adapt to life in the suburbs with her cousin and aunt, but an adze shows up and bites her favorite teacher. Now she will have to face this danger alone or recruit an unlikely group of human novices to help her.
Serwa tackles vampires, as well as isolation and racism at her new school, all while trying to survive and check in on her parents. She is a compelling hero who has the training, but is still in over her head when it comes to teenage friendship and her trust in her parents. Yes, she may save the day, but Serwa begins to wonder who she’s saving it for.
If middle grade readers (and those older too) are ready to leave Riordan’s worlds, but don’t want to stray too far, these are the perfect next read.
Nathan Sekinger is a middle school librarian who is always ready to share a new story with his students.
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