Screening Race in American Nontheatrical Film, edited by Ally Field and Marsha Gordon

(Duke, 2019) This is surprisingly accessible and engrossing for an academic book. I got it because my favorite professor, the amazing Jacqueline Stewart, wrote the forward, but actually read it because each brisk essay (about the production and exhibition of educational, amateur, faith-based, industry, and government films that address race issues) tells me something new. I loved learning about lefty African American film editor Hortense Beveridge (with a cameo by Paul Robeson in a Santa suit at an American Labor Party holiday shindig), and the piece about America’s perception of Day of the Dead via film culture had me bugging every house-bound soul around me with my new nuggets of info. But the real star of the book is Ro-Revus, a puppet frog with a deep funky voice who, along with Nutty the Squirrel, teaches boys and girls in South Carolina how to avoid ringworm. The detailed history of the production, distribution, and reception of this mesmerizing educational film is covered thoroughly, and as you read on, keeps getting better. But best yet, you can see it (and all the films in the book) because the book's Webpage has everything available to stream.