Fruit
 Makes a list that includes “lose
weight”
 Mom says he is ok
 Mom says his sister might not find
a date
 Billy’s dad thinks he could play
football
 What is the effect of the “book within a
book” trope?
 What role does poetry play?
 Literacy?
 Precious’s weight?
 This book was nominated for an NAACP
Image Award for Outstanding Literary
Work of Fiction.
 Pg 11 internalized racism, passing,
colorism
 Pg 129 girls as bombs
 “Umm hmm, I was raised by a psycho
maniac fool” (135).
Can you anticipate the
critical need this book
fulfilled?
Or, What kind of articles, about
what kind of literary or cultural
trends, were written in which Push
was invoked?
 The absence of black girls with AIDS in literature.
 Literature written to right the inequalities of society.
 How inner-city books clubs can provide a transformational space (in






which Push was one of the books, ranked the least favorite by the
readers)
In a book about the Romantic sensibility in children’s literature (in a
chapter about the contemporary child who “resists utter ‘despair’ and
offers the ‘solace’ of ‘hope and honesty.’”
Increasingly unrealistic portrayals of African Americans in literature in
the name of “experimental literature.”
A teacher narrative about introducing interruptive pedagogy using
Push.
Student analysis of conceptual metaphors in literature.
As a rape and incest-survivor narrative.
Developments in contemporary literature, including the book within a
book trope increasingly found in African American literature.
The (Missing) Faces of
African American Girls
with AIDS by Nels P.
Highberg
 Although Precious is at the center of Push, readers
must be careful not to reduce this story to that of
one person living an individual life. She suffers as
she does because of the complete failure of
numerous social institutions: The school system that
promotes her to the ninth grade even though she can
barely read the alphabet--the same system that kicks
her out during her second pregnancy. Then there is
the welfare system that does nothing for Precious
except send checks to her mother for Precious's first
child, even though that child has lived somewhere
else for years. And finally, my background in medical
humanities causes me to be particularly troubled by
the failure of the medical system to recognize
Precious's needs.
 Some critics accuse Sapphire of
pandering to the dominant culture's
penchant for images of AfricanAmerican poverty and depravity.
 What is the effect of the “book within a
book” trope?
 What role does poetry play?
 Literacy?
 Precious’s weight?
 This book was nominated for an NAACP
Image Award for Outstanding Literary
Work of Fiction.
 Pg 11 internalized racism, passing,
colorism
 Pg 129 girls as bombs
 “Umm hmm, I was raised by a psycho
maniac fool” (135).