My Selma, Willie Mae Brown
My Selma, Willie Mae Brown
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My Selma
True Stories of a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement

Author: Willie Mae Brown

Narrator: Karen Chilton, Willie Mae Brown

Unabridged: 5 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/03/2023


Synopsis

"Karen Chilton conveys both powerful joy and profound grief in her narration of Willie Mae Brown's stories about growing up in Selma, Alabama, during the Civil Rights movement."- AudioFile

The preface and afterword are read by the author.

Combining family stories of the everyday and the extraordinary as seen through the eyes of her twelve-year-old self, Willie Mae Brown gives readers an unforgettable portrayal of her coming of age in a town at the crossroads of history.

As the civil rights movement and the fight for voter rights unfold in Selma, Alabama, many things happen inside and outside the Brown family’s home that do not have anything to do with the landmark 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Yet the famous outrages which unfold on that span form an inescapable backdrop in this collection of stories. In one, Willie Mae takes it upon herself to offer summer babysitting services to a glamorous single white mother—a secret she keeps from her parents that unravels with shocking results. In another, Willie Mae reluctantly joins her mother at a church rally, and is forever changed after hearing Martin Luther King Jr. deliver a defiant speech in spite of a court injunction.

Infused with the vernacular of her Southern upbringing, My Selma captures the voice and vision of a fascinating young person—perspicacious, impetuous, resourceful, and even mystical in her ways of seeing the world around her—who gifts us with a loving portrayal of her hometown while also delivering a no-holds-barred indictment of the time and place.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

About Willie Mae Brown

Willie Mae Brown left Alabama at the age of seventeen in 1970 to start a new life in Brooklyn, New York, where she worked for the New York Telephone Company until 2003. A visual artist as well as an author, she began writing stories about her childhood in 2012 and reading them in public in 2015. Known for infusing her personal narratives with the vernacular of her Southern upbringing, Brown has read at numerous public events including Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations at Brooklyn Borough Hall, as well as at many special events across the city, in her home state, and beyond. My Selma is her first book.

About Karen Chilton

Karen Chilton is a multi-talented author, actor, and audiobook narrator, as well as a freelance writer, script writer, and librettist. She wrote the biography Hazel Scott about the trailblazing jazz pianist and coauthored I Wish You Love with legendary jazz vocalist Gloria Lynne. Her acting credits include It's Kind of a Funny Story and Half Nelson. She won a New Professional Theatre Writers award for her play Convergence and an Audiofile Golden Earphones Award for her narration of Karolyn Smardz Frost's I've Got a Home in Glory Land. She has also narrated Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow and Jennifer Berry Hawes' Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness.


Reviews

I really need to start picking up more middle grade non-fiction so when I saw that this was releasing I was excited to get my hands on it and it definitely did not disappoint! If you love great storytelling and also appreciate learning more about the Civil Rights Movement, then I recommend picking t......more

Goodreads review by Jessaka

Beautifully written. I enjoyed this book and could not put it down, but then again, there were many sad parts. I only wish the author had written more books or that she will write more in the future. And I wish that our country was not filled with ugly racism but that children could grow up in a Pea......more


Quotes

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

“Brown uses language effectively to bring the times to life, and emerging from the retelling of her history are portraits of people who shaped her thought patterns and ways of being in her formative years. A panoramic yet intimate depiction of a family experiencing radical social changes.” —Kirkus Reviews


Awards

  • Audible.com Best of the Year