I Call You Friend: Four Women's Stories of Race, Faith, and Friendship [Paperback]

Pamela Toussaint (Author), Jo Kadlecek (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Broadman & Holman Publishers (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805417621
• ISBN-13: 978-0805417623
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,849,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pamela A. Toussaint


Pamela Toussaint began her career as an editor at Essence magazine (Time Warner) in 1987, where she wrote, assigned and edited lifestyle pieces for the "Living" section of the popular monthly for three years. In the early 1990's she was a beat reporter at the trade weekly HFD, covering the fast-paced consumer electronics industry. As part-time communications manager for New Life Fellowship in New York, she produced a bi-lingual newsletter. Pamela went on to write and edit quarterly publications for other organizations such as: Catalyst, for World Relief; Vision, for The King's College in NYC; and currently, Restorer, for the Christian Community Development Association. She also served as publicist and media spokesperson for the American Red Cross NYC, representing the organization's disaster relief efforts in numerous top media outlets. Pamela also provided public relations and editorial services for small businesses under Toussaint INK.

In 1995, Pamela entered the world of book publishing with Mama's Little Baby (Penguin Putnam), a comprehensive guide to pregnancy, childbirth, and baby's first year, co-authored with pediatrician Dennis Brown of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. The book received favorable reviews in The Washington Post, Publisher's Weekly, Booklist and Library Journal. Her other literary contributions include Signs of Hope in the City (Judson Press, 1997), Boys Into Men (Penguin, 2000) with Drs. A.J. and Nancy Boyd-Franklin, and I Call You Friend (Broadman & Holman, 1999) with Jo Kadlecek, which chronicles the spiritual journeys of four friends from different backgrounds. She and Jo were featured on an ABC/Lifetime television special hosted by Cokie Roberts and Deborah Roberts. She is also the author of Great Books for African American Children (Plume, 2000). In her latest work, His Rules (WaterBrook Press, 2005), Pamela and co-author Chris Burge exhort singles to prepare properly for marriage. She most recently contributed a chapter to A Heart for the Community (Moody, 2009).

A 1986 graduate of Fordham University with a B.A. in Communications/Journalism, Pamela encourages budding authors through her "Get Your Book Published!" workshops. She is a graduate of Charis Bible College in Atlanta, Georgia where she was granted a ministerial license in 2010. Pamela and a team of fellow students recently served as guest instructors during a life-changing mission trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, where she hopes to someday return.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blazing a trail for racial reconciliation through story., March 27, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Call You Friend: Four Women's Stories of Race, Faith, and Friendship (Paperback)

Elvon Reed-Borst, one of the women telling her story in this book, wrote the following in a journal she kept as a young girl. It sums up what I feel this book conveys. She wrote, "Some people go down a worn path; I will go where there is no path and I will leave a trail." Echoes of Robert Frost. Elvon, Pamela Toussaint, Jo Kadlecek and Andrea Clark have chosen the "road less travelled on..." Without melodrama, overly subjective confession or sentimentalism, each women opens a dialogue with the reader regarding issues such as: racial reconciliation, growing up in Urban America, Suburban America, the South and the North and the community of faith. The book is so engaging because of the way it is set-up. It is split into three stages of their lives, called: Coming Up, Coming of Age and Coming Together. This structure allows the reader to view each woman's story as if viewing a play in which the stage is sectioned off in fours. Each voice is distinct and individual yet their stories overlap as we watch them meet each other in various ways. Not unlike the four gospel writers (if I may be so bold in such comparison)they describe the same events from their individual viewpoints and in the process we get to know them, Christianity and the racial issue in a more intimate and well-rounded manner. We see the issues raised through female dialogue and three-dimensional story . We also understand what Christ meant when he said, "I call you friend..." because the lives of these women, their mutual admiration, honesty, passion and faith reaffirms for anyone who has ears to hear that laying down one's life in whatever form that works out to be, is simply the natural state of what true Christianity is all about. This is a must read for anyone, no matter where you stand in regard to Christianity, but more so because it re-challenges us all on the issue of racial reconciliation. What are you and I doing about it in our friendships? This book is a map showing us to the trail which Elvon, Pam, Jo and Andrea have and continue to blaze for us to follow.

by Kristy Johnson

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Worlderful Story of Faith and Courage, August 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: I Call You Friend: Four Women's Stories of Race, Faith, and Friendship (Paperback)

I call you friend challanged me to think more deeply about how we treat others. The stroies gave me insite into some of the subtilies of discrimination which hurt others.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars These stores will open your eyes, February 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: I Call You Friend: Four Women's Stories of Race, Faith, and Friendship (Paperback)

The authors are to be congratulated for being so transparent--this is the hardest topic to be honest about and their honesty really opened my heart and my mind on the issue of race. Read this book and weep and gasp and be changed.