Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!
Liza Minnelli
Meet Liza Minnelli: singer, dancer, actress, and the youngest person to win a Tony award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical at just 19 years old. Liza is known for several roles on and off Broadway in musicals including Flora, the Red Menace, Best Foot Forward, and Chicago, where she famously replaced Gwen Verdon in the role of Roxie Hart. She's also known for movies such as Cabaret, the Sterile Cuckoo, New York, New York and Liza with a Z. She won her first Tony for her role in Flora, the Red Menace, her first Oscar for Cabaret, an Emmy for Liza with a Z, and she was awarded a Grammy Legend Award, which awarded her EGOT status.
Oh, and did I mention she's also the daughter of Hollywood icons, Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli?
In her memoir, Liza covers the good, the bad, and the ugly. You might think her life was full of glitz and glam, which at times it was, but Liza had some un-glamorous moments. She tells her story of growing up with famous parents, visiting the MGM lot, watching her mother struggle with substance abuse, her rise to fame on Broadway and on screen, her marriages, and her own struggles with substance abuse.
In true Liza Minnelli fashion, this story is equal parts funny and harrowing. While her memoir covers serious subjects, Liza can't help but crack a few jokes here and there, which is why I enjoyed this book so much! Liza opens her heart and mind to all her fans, sharing memories she's never shared before.
As an avid reader of autobiographies and memoirs, I find it inspiring when people, celebrity or not, decide to take control of their narrative. After all, it is their story to tell.
Hafsa's Way
Aisha Saeed
Hafsa's Way is an inspiring story about a young girl caught between chasing her dreams and upholding her familial expectations. Intended for children ages ten and up, readers will find Hafsa relatable because she is a young girl with big dreams and she intends to achieve them no matter what. Hafsa also teaches us that our plans do not always fall into place in the way we expected them to.
Hafsa dreams of becoming a doctor and helping people when she grows up. When she gets accepted to attend the Bukhari Summer Science Camp in Lahore, Pakistan, she's ecstatic. There are only two problems: the cost of the camp is very expensive and convincing her traditional father to allow her to attend. Luckily, her physician brother-in-law, Sohail offers to cover the costs and her older sister, Shabnam, offers to allow Hafsa to stay at their home in Lahore. City life is much different than Hafsa's village, and the other girls at the camp make fun of her because she's not from the city.
To make matters worse, Hafsa discovers that the medical course at the camp is the following summer. Instead, the camp she is attending is about climate change. Soon, her disappointment turns into curiosity when she witnesses the poor treatment of the animals at a local zoo. Over the course of the summer, Hafsa uses the skills she is learning to advocate for the animals, specifically an elephant named Gulab.
I admire this story so much because it offers a new perspective of a young Pakistani girl trying to follow her dreams. While I may not share the same culture or identity as Hasfa, this book is a reminder that we all have one thing in common: we are human beings and we all have hopes and dreams.