Face Relations: Eleven Stories About Seeing Beyond Color

Book Overview

Why can't a white kid sit with the black kids in the cafeteria?What happens when a biracial girl from Trinidad falls for a guy from a very different culture?How does a teen deal with being the only Palestinian boy or the only Japanese girl in a small American town?Face Relationsoffers eleven original works by celebrated authors Joseph Bruchac, Marina Budhos, M. E. Kerr, Kyoko Mori, Jess Mowry, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ren? Salda?a Jr., Marilyn Singer, Rita Williams-Garcia, Sherri Winston, and Ellen Wittlinger that explore the possibilities of embracing diversity in a world still rife with bigotry and racism. As editor Marilyn Singer writes in her introduction:"...the characters in these stories tear down the barriers that separate us." Their stories may be troubled, funny, sad, or fierce, but all are full of hope.11 stories about seeing beyond color>"Phat Acceptance" by Jess Mowry>"Skins" by Joseph Bruchac>"Snow" by Sherri Winston>"The Heartbeat of the Soul of the World" by Ren? Salda?a Jr.>"Hum" by Naomi Shihab Nye>"Epiphany" by Ellen Wittlinger>"Black and White" by Kyoko Mori>"Hearing Flower" by M. E. Kerr>"Gold" by Marina Budhos>"Mr. Ruben" by Rita Williams-Garcia>"Negress" by Marilyn Singer

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689856377
• ISBN13: 9780689856372
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Richie's Picks: FACE RELATIONS

"It seems to me as though I've been upon this stage beforeAnd juggled away the night for the same old crowd"--Al Stewart, "One Stage Before" "Then Brandon wondered how he should react. The other students were watching him, too. He felt as if he was up on a stage and no one had told him what part to play. This massive black boy was invading his space on the very first day of high school, dammit! It felt like his cool was a house of cards and this woolly black mammoth was shaking the floor. Brandon had gone to a private school from kindergarten through junior high, so he didn't know anyone here. He had no posse to take his back and validate his coolness permit. He remembered something his father had said about making career decisions. Nobody would dis him for dissing this dude, but they'd probably dis him for not. And they'd have him under a microscope for all this freakin' period. Observer, hell! he told himself; he was the one who was being observed, scanned, filed and categorized, labeled and tagged for the next four years by how he treated this huge black kid within the next forty minutes!"--from "Phat Acceptance" by Jess Mowry Last November 18th my wife's middle school participated in Teaching Tolerance's "Mix It Up At Lunch Day." While students in other, tougher places--where they truly fear for their personal safety at school--might scoff at our earnest and enthusiastic efforts to have students get to know kids in some of the "other" groups on campus, we certainly have testimony from students who are intimidated and discouraged by the barriers they perceive between groups. " 'Well, I'm sorry, DeMaris, but you cannot eat at our table!'" 'Why?'" 'Because it makes everybody uncomfortable. Can't you tell that?'" 'Yes. But I still don't know why. We were best friends for six years. How come all of a sudden you can't even sit at a lunch table with me?' Just saying it out loud made the sadness bunch up at the back of my throat, making my voice sound thick."--from "Epiphany" by Ellen Wittlinger But I expect that a number of those students will ease up on their cynicism after experiencing FACE RELATIONS, a stellar collection of short stories about the "relations" part of race relations. Written by some great YA authors who are, themselves, from a multiplicity of family backgrounds, and utilizing the wisdom of their own firsthand experiences within the changing American social structure, their fictional tales probe the subtleties and complexities that arise amid the interactions of variously hued adolescent characters in today's world. "Sometimes I'm right and I can be wrongMy own beliefs are in my songThe butcher, the banker, the drummer and thenMakes no difference what group I'm in"--Sly & the Family Stone, "Everyday People" "When you go to a high school in a town so small that you have to look twice to see it when you're passing through, everyone knows who you are...That's especially true in school, where you've been with the same kids ever since

A great anthology on an important subject.

"The kids were a typical Santa Cruz mix -- meaning that most of them were white -- from surfers in tank-tops, hoodies and shorts, to hip-hops in big-jeans and backward-turned caps. A pair of gothics, boy and girl, had so many piercings that Brandon winced, even though he was wearing an earring himself. There were also a couple of obvious jocks."I assume Jess Mowry is describing a typical 9th grade World History class in Santa Cruz, California in this early paragraph of his peppery and hilarious story, "Phat Acceptance", which opens this great anthology dealing with modern-day race relations. Another clue is when Mowry teases us with a mention of a youth gang from the early 1960s who were known as the "Tola Rats" for their stomping ground of Capitola, Ca, a little seaside town bordering Santa Cruz. Mowry goes on to illustrate this mix:"...one of the jocks could have been on TV as a model for all-American boys. There was also a skinhead in boots and suspenders who could have passed for an albino ape, though the only "statement" he seemed to make was that some Caucasians had lame-looking skulls and should have kept something on top of them. ....The other students included three Asians, two slender girls who were Vietnamese... and a pair of rolly Mexican boys in tattered white T-shirts and faded big-jeans. ....The black race hadn't been represented, until this ebony mountain of blubber had lumbered casually into the room."So begins Brandon Williams' -- age 14, blond, blue-eyed, and a sidewalk surfer -- first day of high school, and we might also assume his introduction into the real world of race relations, being that he's gone to a private school from kindergarten through 8th grade.I love Mowry's style of seemingly writing about one thing while actually writing about another ("Phat Acceptance"), and even though pedigreed Kirkus Reviews didn't seem to think this story was funny, or even important enough to mention -- citing, instead, Rita Williams-Garcia's offering, "Mr. Ruben", as "the only really funny story in the collection" -- I would recommend this book for Mowry's story alone, and I'm not surprised that Simon & Schuster chose it to open this well-compiled and thought-provoking anthology.While I agree that "Mr. Ruben" is indeed quite amusing, I think it's significant that Ms. Marilyn Singer's poignant (and also quite funny) contribution, "Negress", wasn't mentioned either. I've read enough Kirkus Reviews, especially those dealing with "minority" and social issues, to know that when they ignore something it's often just the thing I do want to read; and much more importantly, often just the thing young people want to read. As a middle-school librarian, I'm much more concerned with this than what conservative reviewers may think kids "should" read.The eleven stories in "Face Relations" are by no means all funny, though every one is hopeful without being saccharine or preachy. I highly recommend Marina Budhos' Caribbean story "Gold". Sherri Wi