Science Fiction

Justice flicked her eyes this way and that. All else around the parlor appeared ordinary. The light of sun set the room aglow in corners and on walls. It was an eerie effect, but not something she hadn’t seen before. The house was stifling, as it had been for weeks. But there was nothing odd about sunlight, about heat, at this early hour. Yet, since the summer started, she’d got the notion at times that something deadly strange was going on. When I was considering what book to read for Black History Month, I was once again struck with how inadequate my small library of childhood favorites is in representing any perspective that is not white. Thank goodness for Google. I’m upset with the system that existed in my small, very white town. A system that seems to have excluded voices of color and, indeed, made attempts on numerous occasions to explicitly do so. All of this means that I was never introduced to the exceedingly talented Newbery Medalist author, Virginia Hamilton. I suspect this is not JUST because she is a black woman, but because, at least when it comes to Justice and Her Brothers, one could easily mistake her work for “Not Sci-fi.” This is a mistake that needs immediate rectification because nothing could be further from the truth.