Book Review – Passing
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was on of the choices my daughter had for her 10th grade lit class so I chose to read it as well. The story is about two women, both African American, and the choices that they make in a white dominated society (the novel was published in 1929). One woman chooses to pass as white, the other (who could also pass)is deeply involved in Harlem society. The novel raises questions about fitting in and pretending to be something that you are not.
11 February 2010, 11:13 am
The story sounds very interesting.
I like such books, they are every time really dramatic.
I think I have to read it,
thanks for the hint.
14 February 2010, 2:45 am
You know, sometimes I really dislike that school districts will choose books not for their literary merit but for their “social messages.”
That often results in the wrong messages being given to kids or at least messages that, if the parents had a choice, would not be given to their children at all.
I’ve reviewed several public district books of that variety and found them to be poor literature first and foremost, and second, filled with messages that often express the political agenda of the school board who are not trained educators, but are politicians.
That’s one of the reasons we home schooled our second child. By the time our first child was in high school he had completely lost the values that we try to support at home. But, I take full responsibility for that. I should never have turned him over to a public secular school district in the first place.
We were able to save him by having him stay home the last two years of high school. He won a full scholarship to a a great online college, Linda Christas, and is now on his way to medical school.
You have to watch secular schools like a hawk. They will steal your children and their sense of right and wrong right from under your nose.
The rude, unruly teenager that most Americans think is normal is not normal at all. It is the result of allowing the State full reign to teach our children, and the separation of the children from the natural emotional nourishment of their parents for a huge percentage of their developmental years.
Beth
25 June 2010, 7:58 am
I dont think having students read a book for the social message hurts at all, reading is yes, about literature but it is also about the messages and reflecting what the society when they were written was like at the time.
plus, what wrong message could there be in a story about the hardships of racism?? what are you trying to shield from your kids, that black people didnt and still dont have problems in american society? it has nothing to do with being secular or not. maybe the secular school system saved your son from you…