I came across this book browsing the children's section of a used bookstore and was concerned. Could this be an adult book? Yes, I discovered, it is an adult book from 1991, now 20 years ago, by a local author who is much more well known outside metro Atlanta now than she was back then. I remember her as a columnist, beginning about 30 years ago. This appears to be a collection of columns and poems. We'll see.

From the back:

In the tradition of Zora Neal Hurston and Adrienne Kennedy, the voice of Pearl Cleage engages the reader in an enlightened chronicle of common experience. Miss Cleage's prose/poetry quietly and refreshingly reconciles both her personal gender consciousness with the collective African American experience while stalking her natural claim to the American firmament.

Paul Carter Harrison (Playwright and Educator)

Was it an adolescent prank by one of the Emory students who works at Eagle Eye, the used bookstore up the road, that landed this book on the children's shelf for a year? The brass bed is part of Ms. Cleage's family story and it originally came from a brothel. Still, this book lived on the children's shelf of a local bookstore beginning 7/8/2010. I've left the incriminating tag to testify to that part of the story. And still this book is out of place. Obviously it was not meant for a wonderbread reader like me. It's a "black book" published by the African American Third World Press and expresses a good deal of hostility toward white people or "peckerwoods." Anyway, Cleage is a fine writer. Her juxtapositions and descriptions of people, places and events are always cogent and vivid. Cleage is a good half-generation older than I am and I once attended one of her talks at school. She led me to Toni Morrison when Oprah was just getting started, before the bookclub. And she's been a notable playwright here in the Atlanta area for many years. Her African American chick lit is very popular now. Oprah recommended Cleage's novel WHAT LOOKS LIKE CRAZY ON AN ORDINARY DAY in 1998 and her fame expanded beyond Atlanta.

Pearl Cleage's personal story came to Atlanta from Detroit and other places. It has coalesced here. Now, in bookcrossing, I'm sending it out again.

Book arrived today. Thank you cordelia-anne.

Short stories and poems. Some better than others. A good, quick read.

Left in little free library