Events Calendar
"Be a Father" Reviews Are Coming In!
The BAF book tour has launched! We started in Brooklyn (where else?) on June 2, 2008. If you want the editor and some of the contributors to bring open and honest dialogue to YOUR community, if you want to share YOUR fatherhood story, then CLICK HERE to contact Drake Holliday, or call 718.756.8501.CHECK the calendar below for upcoming book-signings and READ just some of
the reviews below!
"Editor April R. Silver has turned her first
book into a must-read for anyone involved in the black community."
"Books about parenting could fill their own library. They include those by experts, those by parents sharing struggles and triumphs with other parents, and now, two new books about fatherhood that are truly revolutionary. Reminiscent in both tone and scope of 1970s' feminist writing, BAF: Be a Father to Your Child, (Soft Skull Press, 978-1-59376-192-9) challenges men to break a cultural pattern of leaving their children before they are grown. This mind-bending anthology includes essays with titles such as "Freestyle Fatherhood," "What is a Man?" and "Do the Sons Bear the Sins of the Father?" Hip-hop music, these writers explain, provides a forum in which alternative models of black masculinity can be explored. A poem by Saddi Khali, "Fatherless Child (29 Years Later)" perhaps says it best: "at 31 / i am forced / to create / an image / of manhood / for which i / have only / magic in a world of / smoke and mirrors." Editor April R. Silver has turned her first book into a must-read for anyone involved in the black community."
Elizabeth Breau
Foreword Magazine
www.forewardmagazine.com
"Books about parenting could fill their own library. They include those by experts, those by parents sharing struggles and triumphs with other parents, and now, two new books about fatherhood that are truly revolutionary. Reminiscent in both tone and scope of 1970s' feminist writing, BAF: Be a Father to Your Child, (Soft Skull Press, 978-1-59376-192-9) challenges men to break a cultural pattern of leaving their children before they are grown. This mind-bending anthology includes essays with titles such as "Freestyle Fatherhood," "What is a Man?" and "Do the Sons Bear the Sins of the Father?" Hip-hop music, these writers explain, provides a forum in which alternative models of black masculinity can be explored. A poem by Saddi Khali, "Fatherless Child (29 Years Later)" perhaps says it best: "at 31 / i am forced / to create / an image / of manhood / for which i / have only / magic in a world of / smoke and mirrors." Editor April R. Silver has turned her first book into a must-read for anyone involved in the black community."
Elizabeth Breau
Foreword Magazine
www.forewardmagazine.com
"...[a] powerful and groundbreaking anthology, which I highly recommend you purchase for yourself and the black men in your life."
AOL Black Voices
"More Than Words" Blog
By Felecia Pride
AOL Black Voices
"More Than Words" Blog
By Felecia Pride
"Two thumbs up! I recommend this book to all counselors, African American women [and] men, teachers, principals, libraries, scholars, ministers of the gospel, book clubs, Boys & Girls clubs, debate teams, coaches/athletes, [and] anyone else who comes in contact with OUR young, Black, male children. Do you hear me Oprah?"
This book gives me a greater appreciation for any young black male who has [and] is being raised without their own father (or a good father figure) in the home. It must be extremely hard to not know how to grow up to be a man with everyone looking at you acting as if you should already know. Plus, this makes me realize that we black women should try to recognize some of these issues with our black men & try to help them, not degrade them because of it.
I feel that the author, April R. Silver [and] the gentlemen interviewed has served the African American culture well from the accounts documented in "BAF." The book really shatters society's and even our own Black culture's portrayal sometimes of our Black men as uncouth men without exploring the bigger picture of why are there so many absentee Black men/fathers in the home. Better still - what can be done to positively eradicate this dilemma?
Being single [and] over 50, I know that I must treat my fellow Black man openly [and] gently. I must listen & be more sensitive to HIS world.
I am proud to be an African American female who has read "BE A FATHER TO YOUR CHILD" which came from the minds of some intelligent, brave, courageous, thoughtful, endearing, engaging, [and] honest, Black men who unselfishly shared their past with us. How forthcoming they were. I did not want the book to end. Thank you to each gentleman for sharing part of your heart [and] soul with me. Most of all, thank you April R. Silver for bringing this masterpiece of art altogether and being the "mastermind" of it all. Two thumbs up! I recommend this book to all counselors, African American women [and] men, teachers, principals, libraries, scholars, ministers of the gospel, book clubs, Boys & Girls clubs, debate teams, coaches/athletes, [and] anyone else who comes in contact with OUR young, Black, male children. Do you hear me Oprah?
AMAZON.COM Customer Review
By Jasymn Harris
