Mending the World

By Rosemarie Robotham and Robotham

Book Overview

The many facets of black family life have not always been fully visible in American literature. Black families have often been portrayed as chaotic, fractured, and emotionally devastated, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465070620
• ISBN13: 9780465070626
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Civitas Book Publisher
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Healing the Black Family

Mending the World by Rosemarie Robotham, et al, is an anthology of short stories, poems and memoirs written by award-winning African-American authors. Excerpts from four-time novelist Tina McElroy Ansa's, Baby of the Family; Jamaica Kincaid's, Annie John; and Tumbling, by Philadelphia native Diane McKinney Whetstone are just a few that make up this heartfelt collection of fiction literature. Broken into five sections, the reader experiences the innocence of childhood in First Light; self-discovery and identity in Myth-Making; disappointment and loss in The Shifting Self; adversity and triumph in A Taste of Eden; and finally healing and kinship in Mending the World. Instantly falling in love with the words that danced across the pages, I read this book in one sitting. The Drill and Dear Aunt Nanadine are two personal favorites, as these authors captured the very essence of a mother's love and protection and a child's pain and reconciliation. In Breena Clarke's short story The Drill, told in first person, a mother struggles with the independence of her black teenage son in the perilous streets of New York City, while accepting his transition from boyhood to manhood. Playwright, poet, and essayist, Alexis De Veaux's, Dear Aunt Nanadine, confronts the all too familiar and painful light-skinned, dark-skinned issues in today's black society, after discovering a "red suit" in the back of her closet she was instructed to never ever wear as she was "too dark". These hurtful words birthed a compelling and intensely dramatic letter to her aunt of the shame and tears endured as a child. Mending the World, introduced me to African-American authors which would have normally fallen outside of my reading genre. The written works featured evoked a sense of kinship, community, triumph and love as well as diversity and adversity in today's Black family.Reviewed by Nicki LancasterAPOOO BookClub