From Publishers Weekly
Former children's advocate Harris believes that the black family is the most "maligned institution in America"; her response is this collection of 10 moving tributes to parents from their successful and grateful children, a "thank-you card" to black mothers and fathers and a celebration of familial love and sacrifice. In "A Time for All Things," a physician recalls her widowed father's extraordinary will in raising his five children alone, juggling jobs as a carpenter and a minister. Even in the face of spiritual struggle in the segregated South, Rev. Isaiah Derius Bagwell taught his children grace and strength. "No one can ride your back unless it's bent," he'd say. The narrator of "The Way Things Were" recounts a story of personal and political struggle in Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa: Phola's parents were ANC freedom fighters forced to spend much of their lives in exile. While they were fierce in their attacks on the racist South African government, Phola also witnessed the tenderness of their love for each other. The tales are honest reflections on black families, "warts and all," as the powerful, complicated, sustaining institutions they are. Harris's idea is bold, and the outcome is beautiful. This is a quiet and powerful response to those who would venture to say that the solid black family unit doesn't exist.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Little recent child-rearing literature focuses on African American parents and children. These two well-written works belong in all public libraries because they contribute substantially to filling that void. In From the Soul, Harris collects poignant stories of family life from thirty- to fiftysomething, upwardly mobile African Americans. The ten stories have different settings they show a military family traveling abroad, a child growing up in the Deep South, and another in New York City, for example but all of them bear witness to the strength and hope mothers and fathers were able to transmit despite racism, poverty, and many other trials. While these stories were written to give tribute and inspiration to African American parents of older generations who, as Harris says, could not climb the "American ladder of opportunity," white readers can also learn valuable lessons.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
