Dear Black girl Letters from your sisters on stepping into your power

Tamara Winfrey Harris

Book - 2021

As part of her Letters to Black Girls project, Winfrey-Harris asked black women to write honest, open, and inspiring letters of support to young black girls aged thirteen to twenty-one. Her call went viral, resulting in a hundred letters from black women around the globe. Here she organizes a selection of these letters for young black girls, modeling how they can nurture their future generations as black women. Each chapter ends with a prompt encouraging girls to write a letter to themselves, teaching the art of self-love and self-nurturing. -- adapted from back cover

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

305.48896/Winfrey Harris
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 305.48896/Winfrey Harris Checked In
Subjects
Published
Oakland, CA : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc [2021]
Language
English
Main Author
Tamara Winfrey Harris (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xv, 185 pages ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781523092291
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. Black Girl Magic
  • Chapter 2. It (for Real) Takes a Village
  • Chapter 3. Where My Girls At?
  • Chapter 4. Work, Work, Work
  • Chapter 5. I Didn't Ask for This
  • Chapter 6. Black Girl, Interrupted
  • Chapter 7. Boo'd Up
  • Chapter 8. Girl, Listen ...
  • Epilogue
  • The letter writers
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
  • About the author
  • About the cover
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A collection of letters written by Black women to encourage, educate, and uplift Black girls. "The world does not value Black girls like it should," writes Winfrey Harris. With chapters dedicated to "Black Girl Magic," family, friendship, mental health, and romantic relationships, the author seeks to rectify the devaluing of Black girls by connecting them with Black women through sage advice focused on meaningful topics. With an eye toward educating and healing, this collection of letters is reinforced by vocabulary words and history lessons necessary for any Black girl to know. It is also a self-affirming workbook prompting readers to supplement the letters and lessons with love letters to themselves. Winfrey Harris highlights the spectrum of Blackness and the Black experience, writing with necessary candor throughout. Beautifully written, the letters often feel like a collection of essays and poems. One standout contribution features the perspective of a "transracial adoptee" writing to other Black girls raised within White families; the author discusses the realities of alienation and the longing for connection. Ultimately, she writes, "May you love yourself exactly as you are." In "Survivor Solidarity," she speaks to girls who have suffered sexual violence and assault from "the other side" of trauma, reminding them that what happened is not their fault. While many other similar books are how-to guides written by and for other teens, most of which focus primarily on boys, this collection is written by older Black women for younger Black women with the intent to provide vital knowledge, to instruct in how to build a sense of self-worth, and to be passed on from one generation to another. Interspersed throughout the book are sharp "Know This" sidebars, which feature further resources and concrete information on such topics as "black name bias," "radical self-care," Planned Parenthood, and the Trevor Project. A valuable combination of encouragement, empowerment, and instruction. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.