Customer Reviews

You Be Me, I'll Be You

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Being a mother of two bi-racial children, I love this book! "You be me and I'll be you" is a one of a kind children's book. Being that there are more bi-racial children in the world, this book is a blessing for awareness. It's about time someone recognized the beauty of being not white, not black, but human. I highly recommend it, not only for bi-racial children but for all children.

As a mom of to biracial kids, I was excited to see this book and share it with them. However after reading it for myself first, I regret purchasing it! I am not impressed with the dad in the story making himself dirty in order to look darker, and I dont think this puts race in a positive light. The illustrations are dark and not encouraging to a kid looking for acceptance. I will NOT be sharing this book with my children!

I'm not really excited about this book because the story gets a little weird and the illustrations aren't that appealing to me. A black child and her white step-father talk about swapping their ethnicities. It's was OK until dad starting rubbing coffee grounds on his face. Not something I'd probably read to my kids just because I can come up with a better way to teach them about the differences in ethnicities in people.

Unfortunately, I read the book to a group of multi-cultural 2nd graders and I made a poor choice by doing so (and the students let me know). I thought the little girl's father's decision to use coffee grounds for makeup and then attempt to texturize his hair was distasteful. However, when the pair took their experiment in public, I closed the book. All I could see was flashbacks of Al Jolsen (but I guess a lot of people didn't think that was wrong either). While good subject matter, in my estimation it was poorly dealt with. I feel it's far better to teach children to appreciate their body and their differences, rather than teach them if you don't like it, change it. The former approach may decrease low self image. This book has prompted me to pen my own, "I'll Be Me And You Be You And Let's Learn To Live With That!" For these and other reasons, I cannot recommend this book. It's my fault that I trusted the awards and didn't preview the material. Thanks for the lesson, I will never forget it.