Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

You might want to shield your child from the ugliness of the world-- I know I do, but its pretty impossible to do. My wake up call came when my 4 year old heard about a child being traumatized by a bomb in Yemen. "I don't understand what they are saying.. I got it wrong." she said,"because I think they said their was a kid in a war." Now, I almost never listen to the news with her in my presence but I had really wanted to hear it that day and thought she was in her room getting dressed. Her face as I explained what was going on broke my hear and just like that her innocence was blown away. I still wish I had not turned the radio on that day. I think she could have waited a couple of years before she had to face that reality. The other option is to choose to open the conversation so you can guide your children: There are day to day realities my D sees just being on the streets, schools and shops in Brooklyn and not explaining them to her will make her either think what is going on is OK and/or leave her unprepared to face problems when they come to her. This book obviously takes the latter approach-- it is probably the more realistic one. LIKES: Best book for children on this topic I have come across. Explains how white Americans oppressed black people in the past and how racism continues to operate and affect both white and black people in this country. It really presents things as an issue of fairness which I think is a great way to explain it to kids since they tend to be so obsessed with it (think of fighting over bigger slices of pizza, for example.) It also gives kids lots of agency, I think the sweetest part of the book is when it says something like: you didn't choose this and don't have defend racism, you can choose to fight against it. As such its full of agency for white kids-- it is hard for me to imagine a kid reading this book who wouldn't feel like there are things they can do to change the status quo and be willing to look at how their lives might be different from other children's just because of their race. It's a picture book, so few examples are given of how racism and oppression operate but the ones that are shown are really good ones that are explainable to children and most of them are very current: Banks refusal to loan $ to Black families, and Black kids being followed in stores for example. The illustrations very engaging -- my daughter loved figuring out how some of the mixed media images were created and it really kept her involved in the book. Dislikes: My quibbles are two and they in no way detract from how important I think this book is. 1. It is a very black and white book. Other kinds of racism are not mentioned, as a latino family this is frustrating-- my daughter kept trying to figure out where she fit in the dynamics presented in the book and I had to unpack it very slowly for her as we often pass as white so we straddle both sides of what we were reading depending on context. But Latinos who look more stereotypically Hispanic , Asians and Native Americans may also have trouble since it is silent about these groups and their history. I get that its a picture book and pages are limited but it's still frustrating. 2. The book uses the term "whiteness" I would have probably waited for volume 2 before introducing it because I think some less "woke" white people may find it triggering and their kids really need this book more than the parents who won't bat an eye at the term. This is a marketing issue not a content issue though and whiteness is explained well.