Children of the Dream : Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America (Children of Conflict)

Rating:
Summary: A book of relevance to everyone who has experienced racism
Review: As a reader from outside America, this book was a revelation about a society which has so much to offer the world and yet often sells its own citizens short. Anyone, black or white who has ever experienced racism anywhere in the world will recognise themselves in these stories. It would be invidious to name specific writers from the collection, there is not a bad story in it which is to the credit of all the contributors but also to the work of Laurel Holliday who has brought yet another fine collection of stories by ordinary people to the reading public. What makes this collection exceptional is that it deals not only with racism by whites oppressing blacks, but the equally significant evil of blacks who seek to denigrate their brothers and sisters for 'not being black enough'. This is something which is recognisable to all who live in areas of racial or sectarian conflict. I wish that this book could be made compulsory reading for every school child, along with previous Laurel Holliday collections dealing with Palestine/Israel, Ireland and the victims of WW2 and the Holocaust. Read this book, it really will change the way you think!

Rating:
Summary: Hurts, wounds, hopes and triumphs of growing up Black
Review: Children Of The Dream A review by Gunter David Ft. Washington, PA

In the age of the status quo between black and white in American, when the races have social contact mainly at work, rarely at home, Children Of The Dream: Our Own Stories Of Growing Up Black In America makes a vital contribution. For how are we to know about each other, except by reading of inner thoughts and feelings, since most of us don't openly talk to each other?

This book is filled with memoirs of Afro-Americans struggling to come to terms with the color of their skin in a white world. But unlike other books having covered the same terrain, this volume describes the experiences of children, as told by adults looking back. The hurts, the wounds, but also the hopes and triumphs are recounted in the first person. They make for deeply personal stories, both revealing and informative.

Among the most moving is the very first in the book, "The Question" - a recollection by Arline Lorraine Piper of how her grandmother fed hungry white men during the Depression, when her own family had little to spare. "Sticks And Stones And Words And Bones" by Amitiyah Elayne Hyman, tells of relationships with white neighbors. There is sadness and a sense of loss in "My First Friend (My Blond-Haired, Blue-Eyed Linda)" by Marion Coleman Brown, on the theme of how children are taught to hate. And then there is "White Friends" by Bernestine Singley, a bitter indictment of both black and white social values.

The book is the latest in editor Laurel Holliday's "The Children Of The Conflict" series. Her introductions of each story beautifully set the scene. The pictures of the authors as children provide an illuminating touch.

Rating:
Summary: "¿out of the mouths of babes"
Review: Each essay spoke right to me. Some whispered and others shouted, but I knew exactly where the sound was coming from. Mind you, those hurts and slights may have happened quite awhile ago, but the memories seemed to have shaped (and are shaping) some extraordinary individuals. Will be giving this book to many people and genuinely hoarding my first edition copy.