Racism Explained to My Daughter
- Book Review,
by Tahar Ben Jelloun
From Library Journal
If its success in Europe is any indication, this book should be a best seller in America. Attempting to explain racism is challenging enough, and it is even harder when one is explaining it to a child. Prize-winning author Ben Jelloun (Corruption, New Pr., 1995) meets the challenge, as Bill Cosby acknowledges in his introduction. Written in question-and-answer formatAhis daughter's questions, Ben Jelloun's answersAthe book is appropriately brief. The author does not consider his words final, and so the four responses, from William Ayers, Lisa Delpit, David Mura, and Patricia Williams, parents and writers all, are important in continuing the discussion and applying it to the American scene. The book is easy to read and provocative, touching on discrimination, religion, genetics, stereotyping, immigration, xenophobia, and more. Rare should be the library that does not have it.AJohn Moryl, Yeshiva Univ. Lib., New York Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Jelloun, a French writer of Moroccan descent, wrote this book in response to his 10-year-old daughter's queries about racism. The queries came at a time when France and other European nations were exploring how to absorb--or not--people from their former colonies. Jelloun discusses cultural differences, genetics, and religion, all the things that make us different. He examines the social, political, economic, and psychological aspects of racism. Although the topic is fairly weighty, Jelloun articulates the issues without being pedantic. He tells his daughter, and the reader, that racists are deeply troubled people. Jelloun's essay is aimed at guiding children from 8 to 14 and could help young people appreciate the complexity of racism. Other writers offer their own responses regarding how to explain racism: a black female professor, an Asian poet, a white male professor, and a white female children's author who has adopted a black child. The introduction to this interesting book is written by Bill Cosby Vanessa Bush
Book Description
In the tradition of Marion Wright Edelman's "The Measure of Our Success," a best-selling author speaks frankly with his daughter about racism. A runaway best-seller in Europe, Tahar Ben Jelloun's Racism Explained to My Daughter has been translated into more than a dozen languages and sold more than 300,000 copies. Writing in response to his ten-year-old daughter's questions about racism, the prize-winning author has created a unique and compelling dialogue, speaking to racism as a problem not only in France, but around the world. Elegant and sensitive, "deceptively simple" (New York Times), Racism Explained to My Daughter is for all parents who have struggled to engage their children in discussion of this complex issue. It also includes personal essays from four leading U.S. writers who are also parents.
About the Author
Winner of the 1994 Prix Maghreb, Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in 1944 in Fez, Morocco, and emigrated to France in 1961. A novelist, essayist, critic, and poet, he is a regular contributor to Le Monde. His novels include The Sacred Night, which received the Prix Goncourt in 1987, and Corruption (The New Press). David Mura is a poet, critic, playwright and performance artist in Minneapolis. He is the author of several books, including Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei. Williams Ayers is Professor and Senior University Scolar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His recent books include Teaching for Social Justice, City Kids, City Teachers, A Kind and Just Parent, and To Teach. MacArthur Fellow Lisa D. Delpit is the author of Other People's Children. She holds the Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Educational Leadership at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. Patricia Williams is a professor of law at Columbia and a columnist for The Nation. Carol Volk's most recent translation for the New Press is Tahar Ben Jelloun's Corruption. She lives in New York City and Washington, D.C.
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