Anais Granofsky, Canadian actress and director was born.

Women Deserve Oscars too

Steph and Candice did not watch a movie together this month, but still had lots to catch up on, including the upcoming Oscar Awards, the new Grady Hendrix novel, and the many stories by and about women that they are reading or planning to read this month to celebrate Women's History Month.

Books

How To Sell a Haunted House  & The Final Girl Support Group  & other books  by Grady Hendrix

From A Buick 8  by Stephen King

Annie and the Wolves by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions That Grew Me Up   by Remica Bingham-Risher

The Girl in the Middle: Growing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor by Anais Granofsky

Waking Beauty by Rebecca Solnit

The Sleeping Beauty Series  by Anne Rice

Movies

Elvis

Women Talking

The Fablemans

Top Gun Maverick

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Fast and the Furious series

Hudson Hawk 

1408

Links

Read the full Oscars nominee list

What is a Paladin? 

Grady Hendrix Podcast Super Scary Haunted Homeschool 

Timestamps

01:30 Oscars talk

18:00 Oops, Candice disses Paladins

19:00 Recap of Podcamp Toronto (What is it, why do people go to it?)

25:00 Doing the things that bring you joy

28:18 On Hudson Hawk and 1408

34:00 Candice’s reading update and Grady Hendrix chat

44:30 Steph’s reading update

50:00 A short Degrassi side bar

52:00 On reading poetry and fairy tales by women and non-white authors

57:25 We somehow return to Grady Hendrix

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  New episode from The Village at the Bookshelf

The Girl in the Mid­dle by Anais Gra­nof­sky

The Girl in the Mid­dle by Anais Gra­nof­sky

Grow­ing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor In this poignant and timely memoir—written with the searing power of Beautiful Struggle and Born a Crime—Degrassi Junior High star Anais Granofsky contemplates the lingering impact of a childhood spent in two opposite and warring worlds. Though recognized around the world for her role as Lucy Hernandez on the hit show Degrassi, Anais…

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📚Betty Reads📚

FB suggested this article for me via the Toronto Life page. I saw the picture and smiled, recognizing Anais immediately. I first knew her as Sophie from the OwlTV reruns I watched on weekend mornings. She wore tall socks and shrunk down in size to investigate nature and shit. It was the 80s, ok? I thot she was cool AF. Her personality drew me in and captivated me, but you probably remember her as Lucy from a little Canadian show called Degrassi.

In this article, she recounts her childhood and while it broke my heart to read her incredible story, it was very well-written and her personality once again sucked me in and I just couldn’t stop reading.🖤

Lucy Fernandez Fashion DH S2E12: Three’s a Crowd Aired: 1991

Literally all we get to look at today is Lucy’s outfit – a teal angular blazer over a light green shirt and paired with a periwinkle skirt.

Deceived (1991) Review

Adrienne Saunders is left devastated after the death of her husband Jack, even more so when she finds out that he had two names and another life! ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (more…)

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18 Recent Non-Fiction Audiobooks by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of our lists can be found here.

For this retroactive genre (or in this case, format) from Episode 27, we’re featuring non-fiction audiobooks by BIPOC authors published in the last 2 years. 

You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation by Julissa Arce

Carefree Black Girls by Zeba Blay

Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis

High-risk Homosexual: a Memoir by Edgar Gomez

The Girl in the Middle: Growing Up Between Black and White, Rich and Poor by Anais Granofsky

Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez, Ph.D.

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service by Tajja Isen

Grief Is Love: Living with Loss by Marisa Renee Lee

Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong by Louisa Lim

Rez Rules: My Indictment of Canada's and America's Systemic Racism Against Indigenous Peoples by Chief Clarence Louie

Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers by Dylan Marron

Don't Worry: 48 Lessons on Relieving Anxiety from a Zen Buddhist Monk by Shunmyo Masuno

An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mays

Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal

Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times by Azar Nafisi

Miss Chloe: A Memoir of a Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison by A. J. Verdelle

Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance (2nd edition) by Edgar Villanueva

Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang, Philip Wang, & Phil Yu

Anais Granofsky Journal Response

2) How does the author thrive/succeed/triumph because of her exposure to multiple identities? 

The author triumphs in numerous ways because of her different lives. The author learned things that will be able to help her in the future. One of the things that the author learned to do was how to act differently around people; that helped her down the road when she got into her acting career (as knowing how to change yourself is something essential for an actor). Due to her knowing how to act, she was able to provide financially for her family. She has also learned more than she previously knew about empathy. She has experienced different things from different sides so she can relate to both. She also has experience in spirituality from when she was young because of her father. There was a time where she went with her father to a commune where everybody was being their best selves and enjoying life to the fullest. There was lots of dancing and meditation which occurred at this time. The author also had a vegetarian lifestyle when she was with her dad. There was a day where she explored the woods and stumbled upon a couple having intercourse and got caught. Instead of what your typical couple would do ( become outraged or be embarrassed), they asked if she wanted to watch as the woman told the author "It's a beautiful thing, man.". This became a learning experience for the author which most likely helped them in the future. The author learned proper etiquette from her aunt as when the author was with her, it was something that she was required to do so that she was able to fit in with the more wealthy people that the aunt knew and they'd see fairly often at clubs.  These are multiple ways the author strived because of her exposure to multiple identities.

Anais Granofsky Journal Response

2.) How does the author thrive/succeed/triumph because of her exposure to multiple identities?

The article Between Two Worlds by Anais Granofsky is an article about the hardships a young girl who is half black and half white faces while she is growing up. Even though this is Granofsky’s story, it starts off with her parents and their hardships. They were very poor. One of them was black and the other was Jewish. The mother was named DuShaun and she had a blood condition that would most likely prevent her from having children so because of this, her and her husband Stanley had unprotected intercourse. They were very foolish and because the chances of her getting pregnant were not zero, DuShaun got pregnant. They were very poor and lived in Ohio. Eventually Stanley started to follow a spiritual man named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and eventually left the family to go to India to continue following this man. That was when Anais’s father found his purpose. Stanley had made it back to DuShaun before the baby was born and after Anais was born they moved to California. They struggled living there as they couldn’t scrape up enough money to get by so eventually in 1977 when Anais was four, they moved to Toronto. Eventually Anais’s father had left and then her grandmother Shirley had phoned DuShaun asking to see her granddaughter. This is where Anais’s journey of starting to see two different worlds begins. Eventually she starts to see her grandmother Shirley more and more on weekends and holidays. Since Shirley and her husband are rich, that is one world that Anais lived in. Anais's mother was very poor, that was the other lifestyle she lived. A very wealthy lifestyle with her grandmother and a lifestyle of poverty with her mother. To me this gave Anais experience to see both sides of people’s stories. It gave her the understanding of people who were living wealthy and poor lifestyles. She acted different when she was with her mother versus when she was with her grandmother. Eventually she gained another identity with her father when he returned. She went on a trip with him and she explored a world of spirituality. When Anais was in school she was chosen by a teacher to try acting in a TV show. She did very well in her role on this TV show and this gave her many more opportunities in the future. The other opportunity she got from playing the role in OwlTV was a role in another series called Degrassi Junior High. Her roles in these shows gave her and her mother stability in finances and they had started to live a more comfortable life and were no longer considered to be in poverty. After this when she got older, she attended film school and went on to act in many more films and eventually became a director for films. Since Anais was always an outsider and she had so many different identities she managed to be able to fit in at the same time. She had identities with her mother, grandmother, and father. It gave her a great deal of understanding with other people in those situations and she got married and had three kids. She went from being born and living in poverty to being financially stable when she’s older and living comfortably with a great family. All of her identities helped give her experience and led to her success.

Anais Granofsky Article Response

Anais Granofsky is born of half black and half jew descent and being the child of parents whose races are different from one another can put a heavy toll on her. Battling between 2 sides of her life, Anais Granofsky is faced with having to live alternate lives simultaneously switching her personalities and behaviour on and off.

The author is stuck in an internal conflict with the two conflicting worlds that collide in her life, one: the life of luxury and lavishness with her grandma Shirley, and two: the life of struggle and support, being her mother’s carer. Having two personas burdens the author because of how switching back and forth from home to home forces her to change in perspective of the who she stays with. The way she must act at home being her mother’s shoulder to lean on while she struggles collides with her life of being a polite, well mannered, fancied granddaughter with her grandmother. As the saying goes: “You only live once”  and to live a life of two people, putting simply is not an easy task.

Anais Granofsky could have just stayed with Shirley and lived the life any sane person living in poverty could have asked for, but instead she chose to balance both of her lives in order to be there for her mom who has already been through alot before conceiving her. In return Anais is faced with the consequences of conflicting races as well, her one half Jewish family and her other half black family. With the two sides having opposing views on how to raise and treat Anais, she is left in tension between whom to side with and what her heart may choose to listen to more; her jewish heritage or her black heritage. By choosing one path of her mixed race Anais can lead herself to go down a darker path and isolate the other half of her that she ignores is a part of her. For example, when Anais gets new clothes from her wealthy side of the family she chooses to lie, hide, and not acknowledge to her mother that she got it from Shirley forcing her to do bad things to keep the good things in her life intact. She puts on a fake smile or facade in order to keep things the way she wants. Though it does keep her life in check, it slowly tears her apart in the inside and her mental capacity is reaching its limit to a point where she can’t keep it up for too long.

The author suffers a tremendous amount of guilt and despair because of the constraining choices of choosing between 2 families in her life to model how she’s going to continue on her future and make her next choice. Whether it can lead her to do bad things in order to keep things balanced or in order or to not in the case with Shirley, or not to choose one at all and stay with how her life was meant to be lived which in this case would be in welfare with Jean. In conclusion her difficult life choices between two opposing families and having two identities with each family puts a heavy toll on her life and ultimately influences her future decisions that can alter family relationships.

Unit 2, Activity 1. “Between Two Worlds” by Anais Granofsky

How does the author thrive/succeed/triumph because of her exposure to multiple identities? 

The article “Between Two Worlds” by Anais Granofsky is about the life story of Anais, the daughter of a Jewish man from an extremely wealthy family and an African American woman from a farm in Ohio. Throughout her childhood and into her adolescent years, Anais is exposed to multiple identities; the result of this is her success, triumph, and ability to thrive in life. Her exposure to multiple identities helps her thrive because it makes her empathetic and resilient.

Anais says “All of these experiences gave me the gift of empathy.” Her experiences with multiple individuals contrast differently from one another, an example would be the life that she lived with her mother compared to the life that she lived with her grandmother. With her mother, Anais lived in poverty, living in a crumbling room on welfare. On the weekends, she lived a luxurious life with her paternal grandmother in a mansion. Anais also sees a difference with her father’s lifestyle when she visits the communes with him, staying at an old inn in the woods, living a more spiritual and holistic life with hippies. Her time with all these different individuals developed an awareness of all their lives and how they lived; rich or poor. Her understanding of these contrasting lives makes her more empathetic as she was able to spend time with them and see how they lived their lives.

Anais’ resilience comes from her experiences with people who struggled financially. For example, after her parents separated, she lived with her mother in poverty. Anais and her mother were barely getting by, living in a crumbling room on welfare. She describes the time of poverty when she says “My mom and I slept on a mattress together. She wept through the night, stalked by fear and instability”. Anais also sees financial struggle when she visits her mother’s family in Ohio. Anais says “Everyone was broke and struggling to get from paycheque to paycheque, but somehow that made it more ­bearable—we weren’t alone”. She sees that they are poor but they are still happy and have each other as support, which keeps them going. Growing up, Anais sees that her mother and her family in Ohio are still able to cope with difficult times, which teaches her how to be resilient and strong.

Anais’ diverse experiences of spending time with different people ends up being a gift, as it initiates the beginning of her successful film career. When Anais was in the sixth grade, she was cast as Lucy Fernandez on the show Degrassi Junior High, a small Canadian show that went on to become an international sensation. When Anais explains how she was chosen to play the role, she says “We were all chosen in some way because we were outcasts. Our differences made us stars” . Her exposure to different identities and not being able to identify with a specific one makes her an “outcast” in some way, because she feels as if she does not belong to one group; she belongs to all of them. Anais says “Because I didn’t belong anywhere, I somehow managed to belong everywhere”. The success of the show made her and her mother financially stable and brought them out of the struggle to pay for bills and paved the pathway for her career in film, graduating from film school, writing and directing films, and working on her own television show. Through her experiences being exposed to multiple identities, Anais’ triumph is clearly evident.

The article “Between Two Worlds”, by Anais Granofsky is about her living two different lives when she was a child. She had the life as a daughter of a poor black woman and the other being the granddaughter of a very wealthy white couple. The constraints in which Anais suffers from are placed upon her due to living these multiple identities are guilt and racism from the family members of different sides who have never gotten along.

The guilt the author, Anais faces is from leaving her mother, Dushaun behind in the projects, while she stayed at the mansion with her grandmother, Shirley in bridle path. Anais has said that she would keep the life she had with her Shirley a secret from her Dushaun. The first time Anais visited Shirley, she had received a gift. That gift was brand new clothes. She kept these brand new clothes as a secret from Dushaun because Anais did not want her mother to feel as if she was second-fiddle to Shirley. In the article Anais said she wanted her mother to feel as if she needed nothing to not burden her mother any more than what she had. Anais may have felt guilt when she spent time with her grandmother because she was enjoying the time she spent with her. With the time she spent with her she knew her mother could not enjoy the same luxuries as her. This made her feel guilty because she loved her mother greatly, but with the time spent with her grandmother she would enjoy it, but at the same time she would feel as if she was abandoning her mother.

Anais had also suffered from racism. Since Anais was half black and had rich white grandparents on the other side, Anais had seen her fair share of racism. In the article she stated that as she got older it was difficult to find where she belonged for different reasons. One of those reasons was racism. When Anais would go to the Primrose Club, other guests would always ask “Who was this brown girl?” This question would cause her to be quiet. When Shirley would say she is Anais is her granddaughter she would receive compliments after. “Who is this brown girl?” This question shows how racist the people that Anais’s grandparents hung around with and how they did not accept her because of her skin colour, and would only begin to compliment her after they found out she was part white. These types of questions are a form of racism that Anais had to deal with throughout her life and was a constraint that she suffered from.

These constraints had caused Anais to suffer and to have multiple identities. The guilt that she had felt from spending time with her grandmother, and all the luxuries she had, while her mother was slaving away in the projects. The racism that she dealt with from the questions her grandparents friends asked to her. These were all constraints that led to Anais to suffer from multiple identities.

Unit 1 , Activity 1

3. Anais Granofsky is an actor who lived a rough childhood from birth to her adulthood. She has been thought a journey that can say a lot about her. Today I'm going to talk about Anais Granofsky's life and how it relates to the one of the four benefits to sharing your story. The benefit to sharing your story, I think relates to Anais Granofsky life story is “Re-affirming your values”. In Anais Granofsky's story she starts off with her mother and father struggling with the birth of Anais. Anais story is about how she overcomes the problems with having a two-sided family. One side was rich and another was poor. Anais had to live with both sides. Her grandmother would take care of her during weekends, her grandmother was wealthy and rich, while her mom was poor and had to take care of Anais during weekdays. Anais had to hide the fact that she had a rich grandmother and her mother wouldn’t want any help from the grandmother. When Anais wrote this story about herself, it felt like she was trying to give an important message by telling her story of her struggles. In the third benefit of sharing your story , one of the examples of how an author felt about their work is that  "I think writing about it has helped me kind of…I don’t know, redouble my efforts and try to make sure that I am living up to the expectations that I set for myself. And…how I should…how I know I should be treating other people and everything." When Anais was writing this story , she felt the same way the person in the article, about the benefits of telling your story felt. At the end of Anais Granofsky's story of herself , she mentions where she is in life now and how successful and happy she is. Anais also from her story says “All of these experiences gave me the gift of empathy. From titans of industry to a single mother trying to survive in the projects, we were all just doing the best we could with what we had.” Anais even re-affimers her values at the end of her story which is why the story applies to third of the four benefits to sharing your story. She looks back at the ups and downs in her life that makes her more successful and realize how lucky she is and she gotta keep going

Lucy Fernandez Fashion DH S2E5: Body Politics Aired: 1990

Heck yeah, it’s Lucy time! And she’s lookin fine as ever. First, she wears this amazing dress, its pattern a combination of florals and animal print. Also, her gym outfit is freaking cute – how can you slay so fashionably hard at volleyball practice? Idk, but Lucy does. Then, we see her filming a letter to LD on the bed, wearing that ClearTech shirt. Wait, maybe it doesn’t say ClearTech? I can’t remember. Anyway, I’m sure one of you Canadians can *CLEAR* that up for us! HAHAAHH! Okay, so moving on, for the great debate between girls and boys re: practice time, Lucy wears a pink tank, purple skirt, pink belt, and a green blazery thing. However, the green blazer doesn’t make it to the debate because it gets so heated she’s gotta lose it! And finally, it’s the next day, and Lucy is soaking in her defeat, but still looks fine, in this Kraft Dinner-colored skater dress (are you proud, my Canadian friends?) and a floral cardi. Seriously, I think this is one of Lucy’s best colors. And Bronco must agree, because he asks her to go to the dance with him, and she’s all, WHUUUUUUT?

Journal Response 1 “Between Two Worlds”  BY  Anais Granofsky

Lilanie Montoya

 How does the author thrive/succeed/triumph because of her exposure to multiple identities? 

         Masks have allowed individuals to disguise themselves and change one's natural personality. There comes times in our lives when we create a mask to conform to social pressures, similar to putting up a shield that protects against harm. Anais Granofsky, a woman whose story before her role in Degrassi Junior High, paved a way to her success as an actress, writer and director. Her story consisted of a childhood of poverty under the leaky roof of her mother’s small apartment, sitting by the pool with her rich grandmother in one of Toronto’s Bridle Path mansions and nights in a fever dream world with her father at the communes; she played an actress almost all her life. Her on-screen success rooted from her talent in embodying a new character and conforming to the role. In her youth, Anais was constantly traveling between two worlds, often struggling to live up to the expectations held against the way she was supposed to act. Anais explains her struggle when she states, ”I quickly learned to shift who I was in each of these worlds: I was rowdy and rambunctious with DuShaun, quiet and polite with Shirley. In the Bridle Path, I wanted to be the perfect granddaughter, to keep her wanting me back. At home, I felt the responsibility to keep my mom emotionally afloat, to need nothing so as not to burden her further.” Her constant switch between living two completely different lives ironically resembled an actor’s career in portraying other people. In the end, this allowed her to take something she was good at and turn it into a career she was passionate about. It was almost as if she were practicing to become an actor all this time. With her success, she was able to help her mother come out of poverty and live a stable life exemplifying a triumphant way to use her experiences. 

     Anais’ exposure to multiple identities not only allowed for her success on the television screen but it also gave her the opportunity to grow compassionate with others, which she states, “All of these experiences gave me the gift of empathy.” Her experiences exposed her to many worldly issues which helped her connect and relate to others who may be experiencing these troubles. For example, Anais touches on one of her obstacles in the article, “I was always trying to figure out where I belonged and what was expected of me. The tension of balancing social expectations, racism, classism and family history grew stronger over the years...” Granofsky’s “Between Two Worlds” is an example of how she has been able to share her story for others, showcasing a way to bridge the gap between the point of views of the rich and poor, and prejudices among races and class. Anais used her platform to embrace who she is, she states “I’m currently working on a TV series based on my experiences as a kid moving between multiple worlds.” Anais has been able to love and accept the individuality of her background. The fact that she had been able to share her story gives others who might be going through the same thing a sense of hope. Anais Granofsky’s story ultimately portrays a life that has been able to prosper and become a story she is proudly able to share.