Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* No child is born racist, but in the U.S. racism is ingrained into multitudinous elements of childhood, from growth charts and maternal care to doll preference and academic expectations. Kendi—professor, MacArthur fellow, and National Book Award–winning author of Stamped From The Beginning (2016) and coeditor of Four Hundred Souls (2020)—continues to offer antiracism education here by addressing parents, teachers, family members, and mentors, anyone involved in raising children. By turns conversational and scholarly, relating personal anecdotes that range from heartwarming to anger-inducing, shifting tone between self-deprecating and impassioned, and covering a child's life from pregnancy to adolescence, Kendi's work spans quite a range. Throughout, he is primarily focused on naming the problem of racism as it relates to children and child-rearing, then on encouraging personal reflection and offering avenues for self-improvement. There is no one answer and no magic wand, just continual awareness and hard work. Kendi talks at length about his own parenting journey, noting his own errors, false assumptions, lessons learned, and intentions for the future. His humility in modeling continual self-improvement helps make this a readable and approachable guide. Because of its scope, nearly all readers will come away from Kendi's message more aware and having found a point of resonance in their own lives.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Kendi is an antiracism trailblazer and parents, educators, and everyone else who cares for children will seek his guidance. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.
Library Journal Reviews
After winning the National Book Award forStamped from the Beginning, among five straight No. 1 New York Times best sellers that also include How To Be an Antiracist, Kendi was repeatedly asked "How do I raise an antiracist child?" The question became crucial when he learned that his partner, Sadiqa, was pregnant. While initially he wanted to offer his child not instruction but protection from racism, he soon realized that antiracism must be taught early and proactively. Here he combines scholarship and personal experience to show how this can be done.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Historian Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist) lays out an antiracism plan for caregivers in this knockout combination of memoir and parenting guide. Kendi challenges the notion that not talking about race protects children; colorblindness, he writes, leads to "denial," not combating the problem. To that end, he suggests, parents should have discussions about race early and often; train critical thinkers by asking such questions as "Why do you think there aren't more picture books with dark people on the covers?"; and cultivate empathy by making sure not to "dismiss feelings, judge their feelings, or hostile to their feelings." Teachers, meanwhile, need to be trained with antiracist courses and be given better financial support. Throughout, Kendi ties his research and advice to his own experience, as when he recalls his daughter's attachment to a white doll at her daycare to advocate for exposing babies and young children to the "human rainbow" through multicultural books and toys. Kendi succeeds marvelously in connecting the personal to the systemic, showing how structural inequalities have personal costs—"Who knows how much potential racism has buried?" This will be an invaluable resource for any parent or teacher who want to set kids on the path to antiracism early. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Ayesha Pande Literary. (June)
Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly.