Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged childhood

The Magic Children: Racial Identity at the End of the Age of Race

“I used to think that I was Indian. The world was filled with magic children, living in America under the spell of race. But one day I learned that racial identity was just something to imagine about myself, and I devoted several years of careful thought on the matter.

The Last Pretence

In the South Indian town of Machilipatnam, Mallika gives birth to twins, Tara and Siva. Emotionally and psychologically damaged when her daughter dies during childbirth, Mallika finds herself unable to love Siva who is a constant reminder of Tara’s death. Pretending that Siva is Tara, both Mallika and Siva embark on a downward spiral of self-destruction that ends in tragedy.

The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter

Holly Robinson begins this book by saying that, essentially, this is a story she has never told. That this is a story she didn’t want to talk about. I am so glad she did. I am not much for holding back information about my own life and it is completely unfathomable to me how anyone could manage to grow up with a father who raised, became an expert on, and built an empire out of gerbils.

Little Venus

Little Venus, a collection of poems by Carla Drysdale, is at once hauntingly beautiful and disturbing. The poems are an autobiographical account of child abuse, sexual abuse, and a dysfunctional family, yet Drysdale manages to strike the difficult balance between beauty and horror.

Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture

Writing a book and having it published is not the accomplishment it used to be. While academic presses are not known for being as competitive as popular presses, they appear to be on the precipice of absurdity.

The Way of Boys: Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World

Having raised daughters and taught young girls, I know what is required to be competent in those roles. The nature and needs of boys, however, were foreign to me. I had very little experience with the care and nurturing of very young boys. I naively and wrongly presumed that a child’s gender was of little, if any, consequence affecting the parent/teacher role. In reality, infancy seems to be the only time of relative equality. Once these tiny beings begin developing skills of locomotion and communication, the gender dichotomy begins in earnest.

Laughing without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American at Home and Abroad

Laughing without an Accent is Firoozeh Dumas’s second book, after her debut memoir Funny in Farsi. Dumas is an Iranian-American who writes about the similarities and differences in Iranian cultures through her own experiences growing up in Iran and America.

The Films of Su Friedrich, Vol. 3: Sink or Swim

Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim is a beautifully complex film that quietly sneaks up on the viewer, draws her in and, ultimately, leads her to a place of intimate introspection and intense analysis. The film follows Friedrich's development from "The Girl" to "The Woman" through a series of anecdotes involving her father.

Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America

We never hear from the poor. They are simply not represented in public life. Perhaps it is because we don't think they deserve to have a say. After all, one of the strongest myths in American society is that any person can succeed as long as she is willing to work hard and never give up. What I like about Criminal of Poverty is that the writer, Tiny, a.k.a.
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