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For My Family, Love Allie by Ellen B. Senisi
The author’s choice to illustrate the book with photographs instead of fine artwork adds a unique dimension to this book, which tells the story of Allie, a young, elementary school-aged girl who wants to make a gift for her family members that are visiting tomorrow. On the way to making something special, she helps her mother and grandmother cook dinner, tutors her siblings and makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her brother. Her mom and grandma forget that Allie wants to contribute to the family gathering but when Allie has a dramatic response to her disappointment, she and her mother choose a gift for Allie to make. The reader gets to see Allie make her gift – peanut butter treats, and read of the sense of accomplishment Allie feels when finishing. As members of both sides of her family arrive, everyone bearing gifts, the story is filled with smiles, hugs, people cooking in the kitchen, barbecuing on the grill, and everybody playing children’s games. Right after people stop eating, worried that no one will taste the treats she made because they are full, but encouraged by her grandmother, Allie serves her treats to her family, all of whom, it turns out, actually did have just a little more room for a dessert made by young hands.
The dominant theme of personal accomplishment is accentuated by the author’s choice to use natural life (as opposed to staged) color photography. The reader feels like they are inside two days of Allie’s life which is very relatable. And to top off the “accomplish something yourself” theme, there is a recipe in the back of the book along with ideas for homemade gifts, easy for a child to create. Parents will enjoy reading this story with their children and making the treats and gifts listed at the end of the book.
Recommendation: Recommended; Ages 4+
Book Review by Omilaju Miranda
Mixed Blessing: A Children’s Book About a Multiracial Family by Marsha Cosman
A good amateur writer’s effort at rhyming and cohesive story. The story is accessible and realistic, easily allowing a child to see the beauty of difference and how difference exists amongst people and animals. The rhyme is mostly on but off sometimes and she chooses some language that to me reads as raising mixed ethnicity to a superior level over non-mixed ethnicity but I’m just going to find a way to reword those two pages. The illustration is vivid and realistic.
Recommendation: Recommended; ages 3-6
Reviewer: Omilaju Miranda
An African Princess by Lyra Edmonds
This is a lovely, simple story that deals with some complex identity issues without allowing any of those issues to feel heavy. A Mixed Heritage girl goes on a journey that affirms all the parts of her identity—Caribbean African Princess and United States acculturated, freckle-faced, city girl. At the center of this story is Lyra—a freckle-faced brown girl who lives on the tenth floor of an apartment building in the city but her mom tells her she is an African Princess. Starting with the light mentioning of Lyra’s African Princess ancestor captured from Africa and taken to the Caribbean, the story then moves to showing Lyra’s life as a city princess in the United States. Illustrated with collages, that make the reader feel like they are in the middle of an African Diaspora quilt world, the story of African quilts and robes that have traveled around the world as physical surviving representations of African heritage is shown without being told.
When the kids make fun of her for claiming to be an African Princess, Lyra’s family plans a visit to see her mother’s kin in the Caribbean. Daddy, from whom Lyra has presumably inherited the reddish hair and freckles, helps Lyra count down the days to the trip. In the Caribbean, Lyra’s great aunt, shows her quilts made by hand which they use as Lyra’s royal robes. Lyra’s aunt also explains that from the original African princess in their family who had many children—there are now African Princesses all over the world and Lyra is one of them. After the visit to the Caribbean, Lyra is stronger in her identity as an African Princess. I like the fact that she doesn’t have to give up any part of her heritage to be the African Princess descended from a long line of African Princesses.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended;Age: 5+
Reviewed by: Omilaju Miranda
The Rabbits’ Wedding by Garth Williams
In this delightful story meant to parallel interracial relationships, a black rabbit and white rabbit play together in the forest. In between games, the black rabbit keeps “just thinking.” He doesn’t tell the white rabbit what he is thinking until half way through the book when she insists that he share his thoughts. He tells her that he wishes he could be with her forever but he knows that can’t happen. The white rabbit tells the Black Rabbit that he can have his wish if he wishes hard enough for it. When he tells her that he wants to be with her forever, she agrees to be with him forever and ever. The animals of the forest come out to celebrate their wedding.
This is a good book to demonstrate to children that wishes can come true, the importance of telling a person that you love them when you do, and the obvious: that physical differences especially skin/fur color should never stop people from deciding to be together forever. I’m not a huge fan of the “I’m thinking” motif used in the story or the fact that the only bunnies that come to their wedding are the black bunnies—I actually found the latter quite disturbing as it was illustrated clearly without being mentioned in the text. Other than those exceptions, I think ‘The Rabbits’ Wedding’ is a lovely way to introduce small children to the idea of obviously different people being friends and marriage partners.
Recommendation: Recommended; Ages 4+
Book Review by Omilaju Miranda
TV movie “A Country Christmas Story”
At the outset, this is the story of a small-town, white Appalachian mother and her “brown-skinned biracial” daughter who are living heartbreakingly poor lives in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee three years after a divorce. The emotionally and economically burdened mother is inflexible in her demand that her daughter commit to math while the daughter wants nothing more than to sing and play guitar like her absent father. When the father returns, both parents think a black girl singing country music is a joke but Grace, (who reminds her parents that she is both black and white) and Grace’s teacher have set as their goal Grace winning Dolly Parton’s Teen Country Star of Tomorrow Contest. Grace and her teacher gain confidence by educating themselves and her parents on the history of blacks and interracial alliances in Country Music. But race relation history takes up less than five minutes of this T.V. movie.
The emotional pull of the story is multi-layered as three generations of mothers and daughters find themselves torn over the demons of their pasts of insecurity and self-doubt vs. their emotional freedom to support Gracie in pursuing her dream. Added conflict comes in the form of the feelings every family member and people in the town have about the father, Danny, who most think abandoned the family; the truth is much more depthful and contoured than a simple abandonment story. I’ll leave it at that since I don’t want to post any spoilers. The father is refreshingly more emotionally complex than a stock, machismo black man; the social spheres of these characters’ lives are filled with people invested in the characters and not the societal issues that influence their world. Even though Dolly Parton and NBC have shined a light on the existence of blacks and mixed people in an oft-forgotten part of the United States –Appalachia, this is a story about a girl’s family and small, country community supporting her as she follows her heart and the music on a path of family unity. I missed the original airing of this movie on NBC but I downloaded it for $0.99 from Amazon.com last night and, since it moved me to tears with great writing for t.v., unexpected plot twists and well developed characters who work their way through all sorts of complex mistakes—you should see this moving story.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Reviewer: Omilaju Miranda
Bluish by Virginia Hamiliton
Most of the time I pick books for my children based on their experiences so they know they are not the only ones. Many times, I pick books to introduce adventures we plan to do or places we plan to go. Often I pick books that reinforce our family’s values or our ways of being. But sometimes I come across a book with a new character—a character with a life story we have not encountered yet, but I know we will.
The image on the cover of the book shows three girls in knit hats with varying skin tones and facial features. Natalie is identified as Jewish and Black and her mom bristles at the idea of kids calling her “Blewish”, not realizing her nickname “Bluish” has more to do with blue tint of her skin tone because of her illness. Dreenie and the third girl on the cover are never labeled with a particular heritage although Dreenie calls herself a “sorta sweet chocolate color” and calls Tuli “more honey color.” At one point, Dreenie’s little sister taunts her by saying, “I know who your mama ain’t, Drain. Because you sure ain’t one of us Anneva and Gerald Browns!” causing me to wonder if Dreenie was adopted but there is no more mention of this leaving me confused. But I am not the only one confused– honey-colored Tuli is right there with me. Tulifoolie pretends to speak Spanish singing out phrases, “chica-chica, do the mambo” and calling folks “muchcha” but is told by a Spanish speaking girl that she “gives Spanish kids a bad name.” Tuli lives with her grandmom in a not-so-good part of town. Tuli’s aunt is mentioned but never a mention of a mother or father–and no mention to confirm if she is indeed Latina. Your young reader might not have the need to know the exact heritage of Dreenie and Tuli and therefore might escape the confusion I experienced. All three girls play a major role in the story and present very different individuals who come together as friends. And that is a theme with which many readers can relate.
Recommendation: This book is appropriate for readers ages 9-14.
Reviewer: Amanda Setty
The Other Half of My Heart by Sundee T. Frazier
Have you ever read one of those books which prompts such a good discussion you begin planning how to give it as birthday present to your child’s friends? Or you find yourself suggesting it to random bi-racial families at parties? Well, that is how The Other Half of My Heart by Sundee T. Frazier hit me.
Minni and Keira King, 11-year old fraternal twins shake up people’s ideas of genetics and how bi-racial siblings should look. Born to a Caucasian dad and an African-American mom, Minni has red hair and light skin while Keira has tight afro puffs and dark skin. The girls live in a mostly Caucasian town in Washington State, but for the summer they are traveling to their maternal grandmother’s hometown in North Carolina to enter Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America Pageant, just as their mom did as a girl. The change in location offers a big change in demographics and stirs up issues between the girls. Minni wonders if she will be “black” enough. Keira is excited to finally be in a place where she can shine.
Part of their father’s reason for wanting to send them to the South was so they can get in touch with their black roots and their mother’s family, and the girls do. Both girls hear family stories and spend time looking at old photos of family members with varying degrees of skin tone. Minni has a particularly moving experience in church listening to the choir sing and being part of the community. Later, the girls’ grandmother, Minerva Johnson-Payne, surprises them with a photo of her sitting behind Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Grandmother Johnson talks of her experience as one out of five African American teachers at an all-white school and how hard she worked to prove “quality is colorless”. Although not her intent, it is the girls’ grandmother who educates the reader on the subtle ways African-Americans are made to feel inferior to Caucasians. She is always reminding Keira to put on sunscreen to avoid letting her skin get any darker. She also takes Keira to a salon to get her hair relaxed, even though their mother is completely against it. Not until the end does Minni build enough confidence to confront her grandmother about her hurtful comments toward Keira.
Even though I do love the concept of this book, I have a couple of criticisms. Grandmother Johnson never has enough story time to redeem herself. The girls rebel against her old-fashioned, strict ideas and domineering ways by pranking their grandmother and making fun of her behind her back. I wish the author had spent less time setting up the pageant and more time allowing for the girls and their grandmother to truly connect and understand one another. The story is told from Minni’s point of view, yet I think with more from Keira the story would be much richer with many avenues for young readers to identify with both sisters. And the mom just plain bothers me. It seems her method of protecting her children from possible hurt is to hide them away. There are no photos of the girls in the media, even though they are world famous for their opposite features. She seems to want to avoid the topic of race instead telling them they are not a color but strong humans. While this may be told with good intentions, this approach does not serve them well as they face the world outside their little foursome. In fact the girls seem completely unprepared for how to deal with questions regarding their looks and the feelings stirred up when they are affected by racism.
Even though this book focuses on black-white dynamic, I believe it brings up many great topics all families of mixed heritage will face.
Recommendation: I highly recommend this book for readers ages 9-13.
Book Review by Amanda Setty
Care Bears: Ups and Downs featuring mixed heritage protagonist
‘Care Bears: Ups and Downs’ features Jake, a child of mixed heritage whose family has just moved to a new town. Jake is afraid to make new friends but the Care Bears fly in on a care rainbow and help him open up to making friends. His mom (white) and dad (a man of color) are shown but there is no mention of their family’s ethnic heritage. There is a subplot that takes place in Care-a-lot about surprises and gratitude. Rated: G; length: 45 minutes. Ages: 3+; Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
I am Mixed by Garcelle Beauvais and Sebastian A. Jones
Layers of Love for I Am Mixed
From the first page of I Am Mixed, we enter the magical world of the twins, Nia and Jay—one where the frogs have top hats and butterflies land on little girls’ fingers; straws are made of licorice, grasshoppers are students alongside humans and of course, there are twins—boy and girl twins which in itself is magical—automatic friends who are the same (Mixed) while different (girl/boy, chocolate/vanilla) but have each other and you, the reader can be like them too! You are walking into a mystical fantasy land of wonder and amazement and all this sweet wonder is what makes up the mixed twins.
Book Review for I am Living in 2 Homes by Garcelle Beauvais and Sebastian A. Jones
From authors, Sebastian A. Jones and Garcelle Beauvais, we have the second book in the “I am” series of children’s books featuring fraternal twins, Jay and Nia. We met Jay and Nia in their first book, I am Mixed and now in I am Living in 2 Homes, the happy family that we met originally has experienced a split. Mom lives in the country near a river and dad lives in the city near sky scrapers. The children have fun playing in nature doing things like fishing and running after butterflies with mom and doing city things like baseball in the street and eating hot dogs off of food carts, with dad. This book captures the full spectrum of emotions that children feel in the face of their parents splitting up all the while showing us children who are celebrating life; who are joyful in the time they spend with each parent. The difficult feelings that they have to deal with like guilt and fear of their parents forgetting them if they remarry are illustrated first on the faces and in the gestures of the trio of frogs and toads that magically befriend and serve as entourage to Jay and Nia throughout the book. The trio of frogs adds humor throughout the story, which deals with the complexities of this heavy topic through a poetic narrative and many illustrations of parents hugging and reassuring their children.
James C. Webster’s illustrations are evocative and poignant. Adults will feel every emotion I’ve described and more as they read to their children. At the end of the book there’s a note from Jay and Nia about appreciating all family. Children have an opportunity to fill out a discussion form that allows them to identify good things about themselves and good things about living in two homes. There is also a parent discussion guide on using the book to discuss your family. Overall, this is a good book for children to have in the face of divorce or separation and is a great companion for parents who have to discuss the split family with their children and may have difficulty steering the conversation.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended. Age 3-8
Review by Omilaju Miranda
Diverse Kids Books--Reviews 