Forget about Amazon.com! All book lovers, please purchase your books from bookshop.org! Not only will you be helping independent bookstores like my former Oz Books, but I’ll be suggesting book lists for anyone who’s interested.

My first list is, of course, focuses on my dear friend Ashley Bryan’s books about his life. His most powerful fiction/slave history book, Freedom Over Me, belongs in every social studies classroom and home library.

“Missing Ashley” is my first list of suggested autobiographical Ashely titles. All of his lively children’s books are available on Bookshop.org.

Ashley will be on my mind forever. Today I want to highlight his life, how his reliance on beauty and love can help to carry each of us through this tumultuous, dangerous time in our country’s history.

Will the United States continue as any semblance of a democracy?

Ok, I can’t totally neglect the January 6 committee’s hearings, well done as they are. I simply can’t watch these previous liars, like former attorney general William Barr, now telling the truth. Now he talks about the “insanity” of Trump’s post-election lies. Where was he in November 2020?

The only hearing I’ve been able to watch without flying into a rage was the one with the Arizona state senator and the two Georgia election officials who have told the truth since the presidential election.

Back to Ashley, the extreme opposite of he-who-must-not-be-named, and his administrations’s despicable excuses for humans.

Read, read, read. Learn, learn, learn. That’s all that will save us. Speak out when necessary. Believe in beauty and love.

And, watch for my future book lists — both quirky and informational — on bookshop.org.