Louise -On- "Sweetness"

Just finished reading Sweetness. Thank you Sara for choosing it.
It was the perfect book in which to fluidly be learning invaluable
knowledge about Ethiopia while so drawn into the story you hardly notice!
This book brought up so many of my own misconceived partially
understood notions regarding Islam and Ethiopia. I am an avid reader and
have read many books nonfiction and fiction alike about Africa and Islam
and somehow have not been able to hold all the facts together properly
in my mind.
The world is too big, as we know.
While reading Sweetness during this stage in my own waiting process I was
struck with the hunger to absorb everything I could Ethiopian. I mean to say
that the knowledge and information that I am gathering now in trying to understand
this country that I will visit soon and gain insights into the life my daughter has been
living and where her roots have grown will stay with me. This is not just someplace
else in the big jumbly world. This is a place I will spend a lifetime learning to understand.
Interesting to read with perspectives from the different groups in Ethiopia and how they
regard each other. Curious to hear how those of you that have already been to Ethiopia
felt since Harar seems to be a world into itself in the story and hard to get to from Addis.
"None of us are orphans even if everyone we've ever loved has died." p327

Sara-On- September/October Books

Because I have really enjoyed the books we have read related to Ethiopia and adoption, I have offered to assist with the book club blog for a bit. For September/October, I've found us another novel with Ethiopian ties called Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb

I have also attached a link to a reading group guide to provide some questions to get us thinking.

Please let us know if you're still out there, if you're reading (even if you're on a book from months ago) and if you think the book club should continue into the winter.

Cheers
Sara

Sara-On-Cutting for Stone

Cutting for Stone

I really liked this book. Not only was the story interesting, but the descriptions of Ethiopia were incredible. I loved being able to picture some of the places and things Verghese wrote about in the book. I know I only spent a week there, but he brought back the images so vividly that I didn’t want those sections to end. It made me want to hop on the next plane to Addis to absorb more the city.

The start of the book was a little confusing, but once the narratives came together the story really took off. Verghese built the relationship among the characters in a meaningful way and I was drawn in. The medical stuff was a little dense for me, and I have to admit to skimming detailed descriptions of surgeries. At first I was a bit daunted by the length of the book being a new mother and all. But I found the time after naptime chores or by heading to bed a little early because I was eager to find out how the story was going to unfold. While in pre-toddler life, I would’ve finished this book quickly, it took me three weeks to get through this one. But I was glad to see I can still find time for one of my favorite things.

After finishing the book, I hit trusty Google to learn more about the author. I was curious how he had such a rich understanding of Ethiopia . It turns he grew up in the country because his parents were teachers there. I also was amazed to learn that he is a doctor, and he took a break from medicine to get his MFA. Wow!

I Apologize...

I have been a little distracted by recent events. I have been terribly lax in updating the book club blog. Forgive me.

I am making an executive decision. This is our next book, and I am keeping the other two April/May books since there haven't been any reviews yet.

Cutting For Stone.

Now go forth, and read.

Evelyn- On- My Father's Daughter

Bill and I don't usually have much patience for reading a book aloud to one another, but this was an exception. It worked for us because it was an easy read and we were both eager to learn of Pool's life as an adult adoptee from Eritrea. Now, when I say "easy read," I am only referring to Pool's style of writing. It is very stream of consciousness and easy to read aloud. It was not, however, an easy read for the future mother of two children who will be adopted from Ethiopia. Her story made me question for the millionth time: "Is international adoption the best thing for the children?"

In Pool's case, this was such a complex question. Her biological mother had died in childbirth. Her father already had other young children to care for. The family struggled to feed and provide for the children. Her father made the decision that adoption was her best option - a heartbreaking decision, as is clear later in her story.

Stop right there. I always get stuck RIGHT THERE. With the money that is spent on international adoption, why can't the money go to the biological family so that the child can stay with them? This is a haunting question, one that I don't have the full picture to answer definitively, but nonetheless, a question that Pool struggles with and that my family will struggle with for the rest of our lives. It is dizzying to weigh global poverty, HIV/AIDS, privilege, culture, race and economics while trying to decide what is best for one individual child, for one individual family. It is an individual answer with responsibility lying on a global scale. It IS about one individual child and family, but it is also about global systems of injustice and inequality that all of us are a part of - these systems of injustice that for hundreds of years have benefited the few on the backs of the many. I think critics of international adoption are quick to point fingers at individual families choosing adoption while excusing themselves from any responsibility in the system that we are ALL a part of.

But I digress ...

Reading Pool's story reinforced some of the things that we really want to provide for our children. An important thing that I think Pool lacked and that I want to make sure our children have is a physical reminder that they are not alone. Cultural camps, friendships with other Ethiopian adoptees and contact with the Ethiopian community in the U.S. will be a non-negotiable responsibility for us as parents. What the children eventually choose to do with regards to these relationships will be up to them. I am so grateful that our children will have each other. Though our extended family has 5 other adoptees, they will not look like my kids.

One of the many tragedies in Pool's story is how little grounding and stability she seemed to have, both as a child and as an adult. I think the early death of her adoptive mother, her father's re-marriage and new siblings added to her sense of isolation, of being the "odd one out."

Her trip to Eritrea seemed so amazing and transformative in her life, making her a part of something for the first time. I only wish that she had spent more time describing how this trip and the new relationships with her family changed her. The short epilogue left me wanting more.

Though in her book, Pool seems to come to the conclusion that international adoption was best for her, in some of her other writings, she seems to be against international adoption, and more specifically, transracial adoption. I would be curious to know what happened between her book and these writings for her to come to that conclusion.

I highly recommend this book. I think it gives adoptive parents a glimpse into feelings our children will have as they grow older and insight into what we can do to make their experience a better one.

Liz- On- My Father's Daughter...

My Father's Daughter, by Hannah Pool, is the memoir of an adult adoptee who grew up in England believing she was an orphan with no living family before being adopted as an infant from Eritrea*. When she discovers that not only is her father still alive, but that she has a huge extended family in Eritrea, she decides to travel to Eritrea to meet them and learn about the family and the country she has no memory of. It's an amazing book about identity, family, and coming to terms with the paradox of adoption.

When I first began the book, I wasn't sure that I would get much out of it. Pool's writing in the beginning is reminiscent of Bridget Jones' Diary - every time she is about to face a difficult situation, she prepares herself by putting on another layer of lip gloss - but she writes courageously about wrestling with some of the most difficult aspects of international and trans-racial adoption. She may need to fortify herself with lip gloss along the way, but she does not flinch from putting one foot in front of the other on the journey to find the answers she is looking for.

Pool confronts head-on the complicated emotions that go along with her decision to re-connect with her birth family. The process is filled with contradictions and ambiguities, from desperately wanting to search for her birth family but worrying about whether her adopted family will somehow be offended by her desire; to dreaming of and planning for the meeting with her birth family for most of her life - before she even knew they existed - but feeling completely unprepared when the day actually comes; to loving and appreciating her adopted family for the life they gave her but feeling that she was somehow robbed of the life she might have had with her birth family, even though it would have been a life full of hardship and poverty and war; from being overjoyed at the thought of meeting her birth family but being afraid that agreeing to meet them will give them the opportunity to reject her all over again; to feeling guilty about the way she lives compared to the way her birth family lives but being angry at them for giving her up in the first place. Pool conveys all of this in a straightforward, no-nonsense way, but also with humor and in a way that makes these complex emotions completely clear to those of us who have not experienced them.

This paragraph, for me, made reading the whole book worthwhile:

It is no coincidence that I know a lot of adopted adults. We have a habit of gravitating toward one another, so, as the saying goes, some of my best friends are adopted. Yet, even though I know more than most, I have never heard the words "I am glad I was adopted." Many are happy with the result, glad they got the adoptive parents they did, but not one person doesn't wish it hadn't happened in the first place. No matter how much love we many have for our adoptive parents, no matter how much we don't want to hurt them or how guilty we feel for having these thoughts, we all wish we hadn't been put up for adoption. My mother died. My father was a farmer in a village, who was left, I now knew, with five other children plus a newborn. H couldn't look after me and work the land. So he put me in an orphanage. Because of this one decision he made, my life took a completely different course. Unlike the rest of my birth family, I have never gone truly hungry, I have never prayed for rain, and I have never been displaced by war. I have a wonderful adoptive family, a brother and sister I adore, a job I love, an apartment in one of the world's most expensive capitals - in fact all the trappings of Western success. Looking at the facts, if anyone should be relieved to have been adopted, it should be me. My adoption has meant I escaped terrible hardships and the likelihood of early death. Even I know that a motherless child does not last long in the villages. Had I not been placed in that orphanage, assuming I made it past infancy, I would have had a normal Eritrean peasant girl's life - complete with a stint on the front doing my national service, an arranged marriage, and children in my teens. But I still wish none of it had happened, I still wish I had never been adopted, and most importantly, I still want to know, Why? Why me?"

To be honest, I got a chill when I read that paragraph, and started to think I was doing a terrible thing by adopting a child internationally. How could I inflict that kind of emotional turmoil on another human being? And there were so many other points during the book where Pool described, in her blunt way, what it's like to be adopted - having no information about where you come from, and not knowing what you will look like as you become an adult or grow old because there is no one who looks like you in your life; losing your name; always wondering why you were given up for adoption, and always feeling like love is temporary because the first people who loved you decided they didn't want you - Pool is brutally honest about all of this and more. I gained tremendous insight from My Father's Daughter into what my adopted child is likely to feel about his or her own adoption, and for awhile it scared me enough to contemplate calling the whole thing off.

But while Pool doesn't sugar-coat anything, I also found a measure of hope and optimism in reading her story. First of all, I realized that everything my child will feel and experience is completely normal, and that trying to avoid or squelch those feelings will not do him or her any good. Secondly, by the end of the book Pool has come to terms with her own identity and writes: "I am fiercely loyal and proud to be Eritrean, but this does not seem to have diminished my British identity. If anything, embracing my Eritrean side has made me more comfortable in the United Kingdom...The two identities are not mutually exclusive; they coexist, and I'd even say that they complement each other." What I learned from Pool is that the most important thing I can do for my adopted child is to learn as much as I can about his or her birth family and circumstances, to share these details with him or her when the time is right, to help him or her stay connected to the culture and country and people of his or her birth, and to support him or her in returning there as an adult if that is what he or she wants to do.

I think My Father's Daughter could be a difficult book for adoptive parents to read, but I urge you to be as courageous as Pool in confronting the harder aspects of adoption. If she (and your child) can live through it, the least you can do is read about it so you can gain a better understanding of what she (and your child) have experienced.

April/May Books...All Three Book Selections.

Dead Aid




The Lion's Whiskers and Other Ethiopian Tales...


And let's add this one...

The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism...



Check out the discussion about I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla after Liz's review on ARP.

Remember thoughts and reviews can be sent in at any time for any of the books that we have covered so far.

Happy Reading!!

April/May Books

Thanks for the e-mails and comments. Let's go with this one.

Let's keep, "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla,"

And does anyone want to recommend a children's book?

Merci.

First Time On This Blog?

Welcome! We need YOU!! Please join us...

In July of last year I started Eyes on Books. Every two months we choose three books: One of the books is Ethiopia or Africa related, one of the books is a 'How To' kind of book about parenting or adoption issues, and one of the books is a children's book. We also have guest bloggers, (most recently author Rebecca Haile).

Guess what? You found us just in time. We are about to choose our three books for April and May. Feel free to leave your suggestion in a comment, or in an e-mail.

Here is how it works- You read and then write up your thoughts. You then e-mail them to me at eyesofmyeyes@yahoo.com. I publish your wise words, and lively discussion ensues. Capice?

Please feel free to submit your thoughts on any of the earlier book choices as well. We are all in this together, and we all hope to learn from one another.

When I publish your reviews or thoughts, I can link back to your blog if you have one, or even to a Flickr album of your kidlets if you'd prefer. You can join us on the sidebar if you'd like, sign the guest book if you want, or remain completely and totally anonymous.

What are you waiting for? Start suggesting, reading, and writing. I know that you are smart people, with a lot to say.

Thanks for reading,

Julie

P.S. In case it isn't obvious, these book categories were chosen because I am in the process of adopting siblings from Ethiopia. There is a link to my adoption blog in my profile (but I should warn you, nothing much is happening there...YET). The endless waiting does however give me time to read books.

Liz- On- "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla"...

I just finished reading "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla: Raising Healthy Black and Biracial Children in a Race-Conscious World" by Marguerite Wright, and I found it tremendously informative and helpful.

What I found most useful about the book is that it takes a developmental approach; each section covers specific ages, from early toddlerhood through the teenage years, and describes what children at those ages are able to understand about skin color, race, identity, and racism. Each section also includes suggestions for parents to help their children develop healthy attitudes about race in general and a strong sense of themselves at each stage of development, as well as resources for teachers and parents to address issues of race in school settings. There's also a great chart at the end of the book that summarizes the main ideas from the book for each stage of development.

The stage of development that I found most interesting was the early toddler/pre-school years. In the first few chapters, Wright explains that young children do not understand that skin color is a permanent feature, and also do not make the same association between the words for certain skin colors and specific racial or ethnic groups that adults do. As Wright puts it, "Just because a pre-schooler can tell us the color of her skin, it doesn't necessarily follow that she is also aware of her racial identity." Every so often on the adoption Yahoo groups I read, a parent will ask what they should do when their young Ethiopian child says something like "I want to be white like Mommy" or "When I die and go to heaven, I'm going to be white." Reading "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla," I finally understand that statements like this don't mean children hate their own race/color or have low self-esteem, but that they still have some "magical thinking" about being able to change their skin color. I don't know why this explanation didn't occur to me sooner - I mean, I read Piaget in college and know all about the development of object permanence, etc. - but I'm glad to understand it now!

The chapters on the teen years were also interesting and helpful. Wright explains that teens are exploring their identity and this is why race seems to become so important during high school, with black students feeling like they have to "choose sides." Again, I found it very helpful to think about race as just one component of a normal developmental stage, instead of the single most important factor to consider when raising a child from Ethiopia. The chapters on the teen years also included a list of ways to react to racist comments or behaviors that parents can teach their teenagers, and I thought I could use many of the techniques myself when dealing with insensitive or outright bigoted comments that people might make about my transracial family when my child is still young.

Another really helpful part of the book for me was the section on choosing a school. Wright doesn't say that one particular type of school is best for black children, but gives lists of questions that parents should ask when considering a predominantly white school, a predominantly black school, or an integrated school. Wright makes the point, for example, that "integration does not automatically produce racial harmony unless such harmony is actively pursued," and suggests that parents look at factors such as whether the staff is integrated and if the curriculum includes black history and literature before deciding that a school with equal numbers of black and white students is the best option for their child.

The primary intended audience for the book seems to be black parents raising black children, with some time spent addressing the specific issues of biracial children being raised by one black and one white parent. Only once does Wright discuss transracial adoption, in a very short section dealing with the question of whether race should be considered when placing children with foster or adoptive families (Wright thinks it shouldn't). This isn't a criticism of the book; I learned a lot that I can use even as a white parent raising a black child, and I knew before I started reading that I wasn't exactly the target audience. But I couldn't help thinking that there is also a need for a similar book written for white parents raising transracially adopted children, because such parents are usually going to face somewhat different challenges. If anyone has any suggestions for books like this, please do let me know about them.

My one major criticism of the book is with regards to how Wright deals with the issue of single mothers. Throughout the book, Wright describes how many of the negative stereotypes about black children which influence how they are treated in school, for example, are due to people conflating race with socio-economic status; there are certain behavioral issues and challenges that children who live in poverty tend to exhibit, and when teachers or school administrators make the assumption that all black children live in poverty, they come to expect that all black children will behave in a certain way and therefore need to be placed in remedial classes or be disciplined strictly and in general have lower expectations placed on them than on white children. But Wright makes the same mistake when she writes "research shows that children who have two parents who are involved in their lives do better in school and are less likely to get in trouble than children who come from single-parent homes," and then goes on to say that the rise of female-headed single-parent homes in the black community is due in part to the way the welfare system in the US is financially more favorable to families in which the father is absent. I have a very strong hunch that the research showing kids from single-parent homes get into more trouble is based on single-parent families who live in poverty, not on the families of the many single mothers by choice that I know, both black and white, who would laugh at the assumption that they must be on welfare because they are single parents!

This one criticism aside, I highly recommend "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla" for anyone who wants to learn more about how to deal appropriately with race while raising (or teaching) children of any race or ethnicity. This quote from the Epilogue sums up where I believe we need to go from here: "We need to work for comprehensive cultural changes so that a person's worth is not determined by skin color or race. We need to redefine what it means to be black or African American in a way that allows our children to grow up free to be their true selves, rather than be pressured to conform to some stereotype. We must reject the racist notion that being black means having certain inherent abilities, preferences, lifestyles - and limitations. Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison observes: 'When you know somebody's race, what do you know? Virtually nothing.'"