Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

She wrote the words to the stories

What I Must Tell the World : How: Lorraine Hansberry Found Her Voice by Jay Leslie

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Not only was Lorraine Hansberry a pioneer for many groups (women, playwrights, writers,  women of color, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community) she was a pioneer for reality. She told it as it was and that is amazingly told in this picture book, What I Must Tell the World : How: Lorraine Hansberry Found Her Voice. Jay Leslie tells the story of Hansberry from a young girl who would see first hand the prejudices of her time, but also would see the courage, the […]

To Be Young, Gifted, and Black – Lorraine Hansberry (

To Be Young, Gifted, and Black by Lorraine Hansberry

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CBR13Bingo – UnCannon Here’s a list: This random list of things Lorraine Hansberry liked and disliked is delightful. It’s important to know first what this book is: it’s a collection of quotes, snippets, excerpts from a variety of Lorraine Hansberry’s unpublished writing, and you need to go in knowing that it’s a gut punch. It was edited and published after she died by her ex-husband Robert Nemiroff. The collection involves various dialogues, bits of speeches, songs, ideas, thoughts and diaries not otherwise published in her […]

“When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.”

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

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This was so good, and I’m very glad I read it. So subtle and skillfully put together. To think about this woman dying at 34, and how many more great pieces of art she could have created. This is why I like to do Read Harder every year, because I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to this without it. This is a three act play that follows the Youngers, a black family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. Mom Lena, son […]

Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most?

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

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I know I’ve seen the original movie of this at some point, but this is the first I have read this play. As far as English teacher in the United States goes, this play is about as famous and famously taught as almost any other piece of literature alongside Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I think it’s an incredibly earnest and worthwhile book to read and to have students read. It’s the kind of book that teaches about race in America in a […]

A dream deferred might dry up like a raisin in the sun

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I picked up A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry because it was on my list of 50 Books Every Woman Should Read Before she Turns 40. It was a quick read for me while I was on my epic backpacking trip this summer. A Raisin in the Sun is an award-winning play that debuted on Broadway in 1959. According to Wikipedia, it was unique at the time for having an almost all-black cast that performed for the primarily white, Broadway audiences. It also drew more black people to […]



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