April's Book Review

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and found the storytelling quite fascinating.  McBride alternates chapters with the stories of his childhood and stories from his Jewish mother's past.  Ruth McBride Jordan was born the daughter of a rabbi in Poland and raised in the South after immigrating to the United States as a young child.  After high school she made the decision to leave her family and moved to Harlem where she married a black man, raised twelve children and founded a Baptist church.

What I liked:  McBride is a great storyteller and I liked the way he would go back and forth between his story and his mother's story.  He was able to paint the picture of what life was like, growing up in a time when there was so much prejudice in this country - for blacks as well as Jews.  Ruth McBride Jordan tried to teach her children that color didn't matter and refused to discuss her race or her past with them.  She constantly told her children, "You're a human being.  Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!"

What I didn't like:  I really think the main thing that bothered me in the end is that James McBride seems to dwell a bit too much on his "blackness".  He has a lot of black pride  with the subtitle alone pointing to the fact that he sees himself as a black man forgetting that his mother taught him that color doesn't matter.  Although this book is a great tribute to his mother, McBride seems to forget that his mother wanted to erase these color "labels" and barriers.  Just a minor detail.

This really is a good book worth reading with a lot of great discussion topics for book club.