Book report

Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, edited by Trenka, Oparah, and Shin – This book certainly hit close to home since Doris and I are trying to adopt, and the agency we chose to work with only works with birth mothers who are African-American. We’ve been doing a lot of education on the subject of being a multi-racial family, so I wanted to read this book as well. At times it was hard to read. The contributors, by and large, did not have positive experiences growing up. Their adoptive parents were not educated on being a multi-racial family, they did not talk to their children about this or instill in them pride in their heritage, and they didn’t educate their children on their racial backgrounds or prepare them to deal with racism. Some of the parents were outright racist (telling their Native American daughter, for example, that she is ugly and dark and she was so lucky to have them). Even though it was hard to read, the book was good in that it forced me to open my mind and be aware that raising a child who is of a different race than you can be very hard and that not everyone is supportive of it. About half-way through, I encountered an essay that was very useful. It contained tips for parents who are adopting trans-racially. It talked about how they can make things better for their child. That essay was sorely needed because the book was pretty light on solutions/ways to make things better up until that point. I feel relieved that many of the solutions proposed by this writer are things that my family has already undertaken (such as classes and education on being a multi-racial family, relocating to an area with lots of people who are the same race as the child). The book contained a few typos and editing errors (the exact same paragraph appears twice in the same essay, clearly having been misplaced the first time) which also made it a challenging read in that sense, but I am glad I read it. Grade: B

The Meaning of Matthew by Judy Shepard – This is Judy Shepard’s account of the life of her son Matthew, his murder, the world’s reaction, and her evolution as an activist. The book is 268 pages long with large font but it’s so compelling that I think it can easily be finished off in a day or two. I loved Shepard’s being forthright about the book’s topics. I was engrossed in it and even would’ve wanted a little more. Grade: A


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