Dhakabooks

 THE COLOR OF WATER: A BLACK MAN'S TRIBUTE TO HIS WHITE MOTHER Author: James McBride Touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son. Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sen...

  A review for A Long Petal Of The Sea. In A Long Petal Of The Sea, Isabel Ellende could portray the suffering of ordinary people during wars, exiles, and coups. These people are usually forgotten when we tell the stories of history. Following the lives of the Dalmau family, she tells the story of a family that was destroyed by the civil war between the Republicans and the Nationalists in Spain. After living through the horrors of Spanish civil war, they had to flee the tyranny of Franco, the leader of the nationalist military. They sought asylum in Chile just to witness another horrific historical event. This time a coup in Chile and to flee once again, but to Venezuela this time. Victor Dalmau, the main character in the novel, was working as a doctor on the front lines of the civil war witnessing the death of teen soldiers whom he couldn't save either because they were hurt badly or because he didn't have sufficient drugs, tools, or training. Although he was only a third-year...