Reviews
Diane C. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Donovan's Literary Services
Kirkus Review
"Authentic voices of a generation navigating young adulthood, existing through the Covid-19 pandemic while experiencing the loss of a loved one to the carceral state.
"This rich tapestry of student creativity—poems, letters, photographs, and paintings stitched together and informed by colorful and diverse emotions—comprises the latest anthology from POPS the Club, a national nonprofit working with young people who have an incarcerated loved one. While the works included were created by students who share a common bond, the collection readily connects them with readers who have not lived through the same experiences. Divided into thematic sections united by a collective sense of community—“Our Hoods,” “Our Humility,” “Our Homies,” “Our Homes,” “Our Honesty,” and so on—the anthology presents experiences a! nd emotions that bind people together, reflecting our universality rather than our differences. Some pieces, such as the poems “Atrapasuenos Entrelazados Dalias y Amapolas de California” by Donaji Garcia and “Pain(t)” by Nick Griffin and the six-word memoir “I grieve, I celebrate each year” by Lucy Rodriguez, shine with glimpses of literary greatness through the use of metaphor, adianoeta, and sensory language. The collection marches steadily toward hope, ending in a photograph of a purple petunia by Kennedy King, leaving readers inspired. Resonantly reflects the necessities of community and friendship in a time of social distance and division. (Anthology. 12-17)"
Midwest Book Review
"Dear Friends: Pops the Club Anthology is the eighth anthology from the Pops the Club nonprofit organization helping youths affected by the prison system, gathering powerful stories by kids who grew up alongside gangs, violence, and life-challenging milieus.
"The chapter headings alone portend an unusual impact in their sources of subjects ("Our Hood," "Our Humility," "Our Homies," "Our Honesty."). Color illustrations throughout provide artistic embellishments both captivating and complimentary to the written artistry of this anthology's contributors.
"Each of these topics receives essays and poems that are striking, hard-hitting, and filled with impact and insight. Each piece is delivered with an unerring honesty that teens, in general, seem to hone and which this group, in particular, has cultivated to a high literary level.
"Riva Goldman's "The Song" offers one such inspection, derived from a school assignment that led to a different choice of writing topic than the one close to her heart: "That’s the setting for the first time those lyrics resonated with me—a sad, angry, weird, misunderstood teen, and I was sure that no one knew what it was like to be me, what it was like to feel so misunderstood and so sad. It was true that behind my eyes I felt despised, disliked, and somehow Townshend understood all that, every bit of it. The words of his song made me feel, at last, understood, even if he wrote about blue eyes. I have brown eyes, but he had captured the essence of what I felt in my relationship with my mother in those days, and intermittently for the rest of her life."
"Often, the fine line between free verse poem and essay is blurred for the sake of powerful reflection, as in Jessica De La Mora's self-inspection piece "Disgusting": "I cannot smile with a meaning, I smile because I want others to believe I am okay. I don’t want others to worry about me, I need them to think I’m okay. Once I hear the question “Are you okay?” I break down immediately. I can only blame myself for holding in everything I hold in. I build up my emotions and problems. Imagine an empty cup with pure negativity. It’s like swallowing a cup full of acid. I feel like I am drowning, like I am dying. I don’t know how much longer I can hold my emotions in."
"If one phrase could describe the soul of this literary explosion of emotional inspections, it would be "don't hold back." Nothing is held back in its writings from kids with incarcerated loved ones, and readers should not hold back from reading and absorbing these pieces.
"Dear Friends is especially highly recommended reading for high school students who seek candid discussions of life's trials and the ability to survive them. When used as a reading group or book club pick, Dear Friends holds the rare opportunity to not only reflect poetic and literary expressions, but represents the lives and spirits of young writers who don't come from staid walks of life, making their own courses through angst and challenge in the world. Their literary marks are unerringly precise and powerful."
Podcast Interviews 2020, on Pursuing Justice with Harriet Hendel
Past Events
May 19, 2022
POPS students and the Dear Friends anthology were profiled for the Culver City Observer. You can read the full article, "Coping Creatively Through POPS Clubs," here.
May 13, 2022
POPS and Dear Friends were featured in an interview with Deborah Kalb for her book blog. You can read the whole interview with Deborah Kalbwith, Holly Capps, and Katherine Secaida here.
April 18, 2022
POPS was featured on Donna Seebo Show on Delphi Vision Broadcasting.
April 12, 2022
POPS was featured on A Public Affair on WORT-FM (Madison, WI). You can find the recording here.
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Amy Friedman and Dream Catchers were featured in The Argonaut. You can read the full piece, including quotes from participants, here.
Saturday, March 13, 2021
Deborah Kalb interviewed Amy Friedman about POPS the Club and Dream Catchers. You can read her full interview here.
March 2021
Dream Catchers was reviewed by Midwest Book Review.
The literary strength of these reflections, their intimate glimpses into not just experiences beyond the law but the rationale behind how these young people choose to interact with the world, and the diverse artistic formats translate into evocative works urban teens will find unusually compelling.
You can read the full review here.
Monday, February 15, 2021
Amy Friedman and the POPS the Club students were featured on Penn Live. You can read the full piece here: Club gives students with relatives in prison a safe place: 'You have . . . people there that can support you.'
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Amy Friedman and the POPS the Club students were featured in the San Fernando Sun. You can read the full piece, "POPS the Club Gives Kids with Incarcerated Family Members a Space And a Voice," here.
Tuesday, January 22, 2021
Amy Friedman was a guest on "Insight" with Mark Farrell on Progressive Radio Network. You can listen to the full episode here.
Thursday, January 21, 2021
Amy Friedman and POPS students were profiled for the Culver City Observer. You can read the full article, "Transforming Pain into Empowerment Through POPS Clubs," here.
Monday, January 18, 2021
Amy Friedman was a guest on VoiceAmerica's Positive Living with host Patricia Raskin. You can listen to the full episode here.
Monday, January 18, 2021
Amy Friedman was a guest on the WEOL Morning Show with host Bruce Van Dyke. You can listen to their conversation here.
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Amy Friedman was a guest on Conversations LIVE with host Cyrus Webb. You can listen to the whole conversation here.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Dream Catchers is reviewed in the February 1, 2021, issue of Booklist by Kathleen McBroom, who writes that "it's increasingly obvious that these POPS the Club communities deserve wider recognition. While the collection is sometimes tough to read, these are voices that deserve to be heard." You can read the full review here.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Amy Friedman was interviewed by Bob Gourley on "Issues Today," KTYM-AM (San Pedro, CA). The interview is available here.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Amy Friedman was a guest on “Late Night Health” on iHeart Radio with Mark Alyn.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Amy Friedman and POPS students from Calloway Middle School spoke with Jenna Oden of LaGrange Daily News. Leadership of the Communities in Schools of Georgia spoke about the genesis of their participation in POPS and how students were encouraged to write about sensitive topics. The full article is available here.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Amy Friedman was interviewed for Top of Mind with Julie Rose Sirius XM Radio's BYU Radio. You can listen to the full interview here.
Friday, January 1, 2021
Dream Catchers was reviewed by the School Library Journal Review by Molly Dettmann, who writes that "[e]ach page is a testament to how art can heal and express feelings and emotions." You can read the full review here.
Sunday, November 1, 2020
Dream Catchers was reviewed by Kirkus, where the reviewer notes that "the pieces are emotive but not resigned" and "their contributions are lyrical, haunting, and poignant, and the anthology marches toward hope." You can read the full review here.