The Osaze Project is a dramatic play based on perspectives surrounding the death of Osaze Osagie. Adapted for Zoom, the plot is a series of local interviews by an outside news reporter.

In 2019 Osagie, 29, was shot fatally by a State College police officer serving him a mental health warrant.

I like that the on-camera production afforded The Osaze Project a documentary style. It incorporates real-life footage and documented accounts surrounding Osagie and his death.
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The Project might not appeal to a lay audience with no connection to, or affinity for, State College or Penn State. However, the ironies that have broader appeal were either not referenced or not emphasized.

Osagie's parents, for example, are both professors of the town's beloved university. His mother, a professor emeritus, was teaching on the other side of the country when she learned of his death.

​Osagie's father, whose call prompted the warrant, trained the department that later delayed notifying him of the shooting.

​And Osagie, apparently a devout Christian who walked in his faith, was shot twice in the back in his new apartment.

Whatever the limitations, acting wasn't one of them. Herb Newsome, depicting Osaze's father, performed both monologue and dialogue in the professor's Nigerian accent. His eyes furrowed in anguish and his lips quivered as he fought back tears with language that personified Osaze beyond his schizophrenia and autism. Wilson Hutton, depicting the police chief, was no less convincing. Even in the chief's silence or restraint, he wasted no blink of an eye or stir in his seat during each and every line of dialogue with Newsome.

Ultimately, The Osaze Project offers a voice to the deceased Osaze Osagie and a depiction of the shooting officer whose identity remains concealed.

A review of the stage play The Osaze Project (Charles Dumas)

Note: Charles Dumas directed the production of No Place to be Somebody that I saw in 2013.

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find dozens of her reviews, including this one on The Osaze Project by Charles Dumas, at landturn.com/reviews.

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"When his fingertips hit you with that apple green alcohol or that witch hazel, it'll sting, but not like a scorpion or a hornet, more like an electric stamp of approval."

The illustrator captures Young Man's watchful eye from different angles. He's subject to whatever cut his barber gives, but author Derrick Barnes reminds us time and again that he's in good hands.

Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut makes way for those picture books that feature everyday Black boys. Contemporary and culturally relevant.

A book review of Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut (Derrick Barnes) (Gordon C. James, illustrator)

​Recommender/Reference: aalbc.com

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find her reviews on books from the Dauphin County Library System, including one on CROWN: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, at landturn.com/reviews.

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Kill the Messenger revisits "Dark Alliance," the series that drove Gary Webb from investigative journalism and perhaps life itself. It also serves as a primer for and reading of Dark Alliance, including the book version Webb later wrote.

I really like how Kill the Messenger reads -- like an investigative report. The language is concise. The narrative voice isn't long and breathless. And there are dozens of sources interviewed or referenced for different points of view.

The objective style isn't devoid of emotional effect though. It's hard to read how Webb's livelihood dwindled after he resigned from The Mercury News, or his failed attempt to advance Dark Alliance through his chosen profession.

Nick Schou -- the author and himself an investigative journalist -- advanced the work laid by Webb, his contemporary. Without apparent favor or fervor, Schou's living sources include dozens of Webb's former colleagues; high-profile detractors; and public-facing supporters. For that, I think Kill the Messenger is indeed his story to tell.​

A book review of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nick Schou)

Recommender/Reference: finalcall.com

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find dozens of her reviews, including one on Nick Schou's Kill the Messenger, at landturn.com/reviews.

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Discutí con algunos de los personajes, incluso con la resolución (que era realmente buena). La Chica Salvaje tiene muchas dimensiones, y recomiendo leerlo con uno amigo o en un club de lectural. Fue lento al principio y, por supuesto, no estaba familiarizado con la voz matrimonial en ese momento. Por lo tanto, desconfiaba de retener los detalles sensoriales solo un escenario fugaz de información de fondo en lugar del escenario real. Sin embargo, la autora Delia Owens fue constante el pantano y sus hermosas criaturas y analogías con el comportamiento humano, el ciclo de vida y la voluntad de vivir. Y Kya, analfabeta y una nina sin un centavo criandose a si misma, es su humilde guía sin pretensiones. ​

Una revisión libre para La Chica Salvaje (Delia Owens). Translated by Simao Henriques, Ph.D.

​Recommender/Reference: Alex

Jubalyn ExWilliams lives in Pennsylvania (United States). You can find dozens of her reviews, including one on La Chica Salvaje by Delia Owens, at landturn.com/reviews.

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