We could all use a little Angelou right now.
Actress, U. N. Women Goodwill Ambassador and real-life Hermione Granger, Emma Watson tweeted Wednesday afternoon that her first post-election step would be to take Maya Angelou books to the New York City subway.
“Then,” she added, “I am going to fight even harder for all the things I believe in.”
Earlier this month, Watson ? who plays Belle in the upcoming “Beauty and the Beast” live-action reboot ? hid copies of Angelou’s Mom & Me & Mom on the London Underground as part of a campaign called Books on the Underground, to encourage commuters to read on the train.
Mom & Me & Mom happens to be the November/December book selection for her feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf, which she launched early in 2016. It’s very likely that this Angelou book will also be tucked into corners of New York City subway cars, as they were in the London Underground.
Mom & Me & Mom, published in 2013, tells the story of Angelou’s relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter ? sometimes stormy and long fractured, but ultimately reconciled. An examination of motherhood and daughterhood, as well as black families, it’s delivered, said a Washington Post review upon publication, with “Angelou’s trademark good humor and fierce optimism.”
For New York City voters devastated by the evaporation of a first female president, this honest but warm examination of matriarchal lineage may be a welcome salve.