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Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?
From the Projects to Prep School: A Memoir
by Charlise Lyles
- Format: Softcover, 272 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 inches
- Illustrations: 21 black-and-white photographs
- ISBN: 978-1-59851-041-6
- Price: $14.95
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- Reviews
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Description
NEW updated, softcover edition . . .
A memoir of race and education, this is the story of a girl who grew up and out of the Cleveland projects in the 1960s and '70s.
While growing up in Cleveland, young Charlise Lyles experienced turbulent events including race riots and a neighborhood murder. Yet she was inspired to appreciate literature at a young age, and she spent her days reading—and also often searching for the estranged father who taught her that love of learning.
Despite starting in the “slow class” at an aging school on Cleveland's east side, Lyles had a thirst for knowledge and drive for success that would open a door to new opportunities. Granted a scholarship to a prestigious prep school in a wealthy suburb, the vibrant teenager finds herself presented with a bewildering set of new challenges—and a new direction in life.
Reviews
A memoir told through evocative language and with clear-eyed precision. Lyles writes about her experiences with both America's mid-20th-century urban racial dysfunction and her own intellectual blooming. The summer of 1974, a time when the author was poised between Cleveland's projects and a scholarship to a private academy, is the linchpin. She moves back and forth with grace and an ever-growing awareness of how her parents created a smart, well-read girl in spite of poverty . . . This is essential reading for all American teens. — School Library Journal
A fascinating literary memoir from the viewpoint of a little girl who did dare to disturb the universe she was born into. Her practical and smart mother and her father who looked at the stars and drank too much gave her the tools to do so.
Lyles has given a vivid picture, one laced with generosity, humor and insight, of growing up poor without giving up. — Morning Journal
Blacks and whites sharing the same schools are a foregone conclusion in the modern day, but as recent as forty years ago, major challenges were faced. "Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?: From the Projects to Prep School" is her story of arriving in an extreme majority white prep school during such a time it was completely unheard of. Facing a new set of challenges while maintaining a desire to learn, Lyles' story is a moving one indeed. "Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?" is a solid piece on those who faced challenges during the civil rights era. — Midwest Book Review
Lyles straddles multiple worlds as she comes of age, and her longing for the attention of a feckless father registers on every page. Her clear, detail-rich memoir shows how she constructed an identity -- before graduating from Smith College and eventually returning to Cleveland. — The Plain Dealer
Lyles paints a detailed, thoughtful picture of race relations in the 1970s and, in so doing, demands that we continue to examine these same important issues as we move into the future. Highly recommended. — Small Press Reviews
About Charlise Lyles
Charlise Lyles was born in Cleveland in 1959. She is an alumna of the A Better Chance program and a 1981 graduate of Smith College. A 1990 recipient of an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, she has worked as a reporter for the Virginian--Pilot and the Ledger-Star newspapers in Norfolk, Virginia and the Dayton Daily News. Lyles is the recipient of three awards from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. She is the co-founding editor of Catalyst Cleveland now Catalyst Ohio magazine. After ten years, she left the publication to pursue other ventures in educational equity, and creative writing. Lyles was also a Fellow in the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at the John Glenn School at The Ohio State University. Catalyst has also received three awards from The Ohio Society for Professional Journalists and is a winner of a 2007 Clarion Award from the Association of Women in Communication. More About Charlise Lyles