The Color Of Water

by James Mc Bride

The Color Of Water, written by James McBride is an awakening to the real world. It shows how a family may face difficulites just by being poor and Jewish in a white, Christian neighborhood. Though the family tried to run from their problems; Their problems always seemed to follow.

In chapter 10, there is a joke about the teacher and the beans. "The first little boy says,'There's pinto beans.'....'Then a little girl in the back raises her hand and says,'we're all human beans!"I myself can relate to being the "odd man" in a school because when I moved from Barbados to Palmdale, CA there were not many black students. Those who were black were African-American. My accent made me stand out. "Are you Jamaican?" I heard that question so many times as though it was the only island in the West Indies. I was furious yet, I couldn't run. It was reality, I had to face it. Somehow we were all the same.

Mr. McBride brings us to the time in which he wrote the book. He tells the story with so much detail that you can feel the pains of the characters and the the joys as well. The tremendous writing skills Mr. McBride uses has you walking through each seen with the characters to feel what they were going through.

The book tells of the worlds racial inequalities. A mother's love for her children and a fight for a better life. Being that the story is a black man tribute to his white mother, McBride demonstrates that one should never forget where he is from.