Joosse, Barbara. Stars in the Darkness. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002.
Stars in the Darkness is a story about an African American boy who lives with his mother and brother in an apartment in the city. The boy is the narrator of the story and is dealing with the issue of his older brother, Richard, who he looks up to and respects, joining a gang. The narrator and his mother decide to rally the neighbors together to fight against the gangs by starting Peace Walks at night to stop the gangs. The story deals with the emotions the boy is feeling along with his mother as they realize that Richard has become part of a gang.
The book is written by Barbara Joosse, who grew up in Milwaukee, and who according to the images on her website she does not appear to be African American and according to her biography she also did not appear to grow up in the inner city. For these reason she would be considered an outsider author for this particular book about African American individuals. On the issue of her writing as an outsider Joosse stated that, "I often write outside of my own experience, drawing word pictures of places or people or activities other than my own. In order to do this, I need to visit those places (whether it is a geographic location or a new activity), record the voices of people who live the story I tell, research and call on a team of expert readers to check for accuracy”. This is an important thing to note when thinking about her as an author because it explains how she does her research to create these authentic books even from a culture that is not her own.
Stars in the Darkness is a story about an African American boy who lives with his mother and brother in an apartment in the city. The boy is the narrator of the story and is dealing with the issue of his older brother, Richard, who he looks up to and respects, joining a gang. The narrator and his mother decide to rally the neighbors together to fight against the gangs by starting Peace Walks at night to stop the gangs. The story deals with the emotions the boy is feeling along with his mother as they realize that Richard has become part of a gang.
The book is written by Barbara Joosse, who grew up in Milwaukee, and who according to the images on her website she does not appear to be African American and according to her biography she also did not appear to grow up in the inner city. For these reason she would be considered an outsider author for this particular book about African American individuals. On the issue of her writing as an outsider Joosse stated that, "I often write outside of my own experience, drawing word pictures of places or people or activities other than my own. In order to do this, I need to visit those places (whether it is a geographic location or a new activity), record the voices of people who live the story I tell, research and call on a team of expert readers to check for accuracy”. This is an important thing to note when thinking about her as an author because it explains how she does her research to create these authentic books even from a culture that is not her own.
However, even as an outsider author she uses African American Language (AAL) in both the narrative and the dialogue in the book. Since the narrator is an African American boy the narrative text also uses this language. Through the use of words that drop the final consonant, as is a typical grammatical form of AAL, such as howlin’ fightin’ playin’ sleepin’ and nothin’, the author uses this grammatical form used in AAL to add authenticity to the text. This correct grammatical form of AAL as written by Joosse shows the way in which an outside author can also authentically create AAL in text. For this reason I believe that this book is a great example of a diverse literature book written authentically by an outside author and would be great to add to a classroom collection.
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