This book discusses racial tensions, adoption, mental health, and growing up. It's packed full of coming of age stories, with tons of the general confusion of figuring out why the older people do what they do. That being said, if you're uncomfortable with any of those topics, this book might not be for you, buttttt, you may deeply want to consider reading it anyways. Broaden your horizons.
I think this book is important. It's from a perspective that I haven't encountered before (but maybe I just haven't been looking???), so it was a real treat for me to read. More on this below.
An amazon summary, "In this lyrical coming-of-age story about family, sisterhood, music, race, and identity, Mariama J. Lockington draws on some of the emotional truths from her own experiences growing up with an adoptive white family.
I am a girl but most days I feel like a question mark.
Makeda June Kirkland is eleven years old, adopted, and black. Her parents and big sister are white, and even though she loves her family very much, Makeda often feels left out. When Makeda's family moves from Maryland to New Mexico, she leaves behind her best friend, Lena― the only other adopted black girl she knows― for a new life. In New Mexico, everything is different. At home, Makeda’s sister is too cool to hang out with her anymore and at school, she can’t seem to find one real friend.
Through it all, Makeda can’t help but wonder: What would it feel like to grow up with a family that looks like me?
Through singing, dreaming, and writing secret messages back and forth with Lena, Makeda might just carve a small place for herself in the world.
For Black Girls Like Me is for anyone who has ever asked themselves: How do you figure out where you are going if you don’t know where you came from?" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Makeda is eleven years old, adopted by a white family, and is black. Their family moves from Maryland to New Mexico for her Dad's job; she leaves behind her best friend, Lena, who also happens to be another black girl adopted by a white family. They had a deep friendship as the world treats them the same way, and they have the same set of awkward circumstances half the time (or so it seems). To keep in contact with each other, the best friends agree to keep diary entries in a notebook and mail it to each other to make sure they don't miss anything.
In New Mexico, Makeda is at odds with the school as there aren't very many black people. She's kind of singled out at first for being the new kid, then she's singled out for being nice to the other kind of outsider kid. Then the outsider kid joins with the main pack of mean girls, and Makeda resigns herself to being an outsider. The other kids in school have a hard time understanding her family, and her older sister isn't as helpful as she could be. They're family dynamics weren't really an issue back home, but after a school kid calls her the N-word, Makeda's mom pulls them out of school entirely. Makeda's mom only finds out because she's been reading the journal Makeda shares with Lena.
That's enough summary. I'm literally going to muck up explaining any of the complexity of this story if I try to go any further.
A few things; this story is told as a regular story, but there are also bits of diary entries (the notebook entries between Makeda and Lena), and then also tumblr posts which sometimes have poems in them. The multiple platforms used to tell the story feels like a much more authentic way of experiencing all the confusion that goes along with growing up.
ALSO. I'm a grown white woman. I will never, ever, understand truly what it is to be discriminated against due to the color of my skin. I just won't. I don't think there's any way for me to experience something that happens for someone's entire life. I just don't think it's possible. BUT, I do have a lot of sympathy and I try really hard to understand as best as I can. With all that being said, it was really refreshing to read this story that had such a pointed way of talking about race without letting it become a central part of the story; it was just a part of the story. It was built as another piece of Makeda's identity. I also cried a little at the hair salon scene (if you read it, you may get it) due to the sense of Makeda feeling seen and respected while also being taught.
Anywho.
There was also a whole other aspect of the story of the mother's mental health state, watching the adults kind of deal with it, but also witnessing the effect on the sisters. It was very intense, and gave the gravitas to the situation that I think it garners.
There was SO much to unpack from this book, but, I'm sure there was more I didn't cover or even understand. A lot of these topics are very tricky to have a good discussion about, and my hats off to the author for incorporating so much in one coherent story.
The one thing I'm a little miffed about, is that I don't know for sure whether or not there's going to be a sequel. I would love a sequel.
Happy reading!
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