Rating: 
Summary: EXCELLENT
Review: This book is one of the best books I have ever
read. It teaches you the love of one family and how it was able to stick together through problems that they had. It is an excellent book. It shows you the wonderful thinking of Ruth McBride.
I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in reading about a powerful, and motivation family.
Rating:
Summary: Well written biography
Review: I loved the way that James McBride let us explore his changing sense of identity as a black man, his process of maturing, and his extraordinaily complex relationship with his mother, a white jewish woman escaping from her own past. One of the best books I have read in years
Rating:
Summary: Honestly as good read..
Review: The Color of Water: a black man's tribute to his white mother was one of the better books I've read in a long time. I felt that the organization of the book was creative and kept you wanting more. I was compelled to read, finishing the book in two sittings. I almost felt part of the family
Rating:
Summary: A book for all religions and all races
Review: It takes a truly remarkable book to stop a busy working Mom in her tracks and force her to sit, spellbound, with a work of nonfiction. James McBride's "The Color of Water" is just such a book. Reading about the struggles of a woman raising 12 children would be interesting enough. Reading about these struggles through the eyes of her inquisitive child is even more fascinating. However, most riveting of all is reading about the background of this remarkable woman who lived in a community not her own, but which she made become her own, all through the force of her incredible will.
McBride writes movingly and sincerely of his wonderful mother and the difficulties she endured while raising her brood. As I read the book, I could almost picture it as a film -- but who on earth could possibly play his mother and fully convey the strength and indomidable will she had? "The Color of Water" is not just a moving story in terms of what happens. It's also beautifully written, and unfolds in a cinematic manner. Truly, it's a book for all races and all religions to relish.
Rating: 
Summary: A moving glimpse of a world few know.
Review: An honest look at a remarkable (but certainly not perfect) woman who had a foot in two different worlds but belonged fully to neither. McBride paints a vivid picture (warts and all) of his family. When this short book was over I felt like inviting him over for coffee to find out more
Rating:
Summary: When it was over, I wished there were more.
Review: "The Color of Water" is a book you won't want to stop reading. Problem is, reading on brings with it the inevitable end. James McBride's story of his growing up in a family of 12 brothers and sisters administered primarily by his mother, a white woman who always told her inquisitive son, James, "I'm light-skinned." The power of McBride's work comes from his own words and those of his mother, and the plain fact that it's the story of their lives.
In many ways, McBride was like many children: he saw what he had and wished for something else. There were times that his mother, often the only white person in the neighborhood, embarrassed him to no end. Like when she took up bicycling after the death of her second husband, James' stepfather, but the only father he had ever known, his real father having died of cancer before his birth. His mother was odd, a spectacle. James wished for the family in "My Three Sons." But you can bet as he got older he came to understand the gift of his family. The confusion of so many children, the strength of his mother Ruth's faith in Jesus and in the Christianity she adopted as a young woman wracked with guilt over leaving her disabled mother and younger sister to deal with their uncaring and demanding father, who ran a store in the black neighborhood of a small Virginia town. When she left her family to live in New York City, to marry James' father, Dennis McBride, Ruth's Orthodox Jewish family said the kaddish and sat shiva for her: as if she were dead. And she was dead to them.
But, as McBride writes and as his mother tells us in her own words, she was a runner, a mover. She attacked life with a love of Jesus and a strong sense of the importance of education. This translated handsomely for her children: professionals all, with multiple graduate degrees. Ruth, herself, earned a bachelor's degree at age 65.
James McBride is a writer, journalist and musician. It shows in his prose, which flows under the reader's eye the way a delicious sax solo meets the ear: continuously. This makes it hard to put the book down -- except for the fear that the more you read the sooner it will be over. Which is one of the best reasons to read a book that I know of.
Rating:
Summary: A Black man's wonderful tribute to his Jewish mom.
Review: James McBride's mother, Ruth, raised twelve African-American children in New York's inner city over the past 40 years. Each and every one lived to adulthood, received good educations and are now professionals. Mrs. McBride raised her children without the benefits of money and, mostly, without the help of a living spouse. Reading this wonderful tribute to Ruth McBride by her son, James, one learns that her triumph over circumstance was the result of a uniquely strong character and of the compassion developed in her because of her experience as the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi in a small southern town. Her father was a racist misanthrope who abused his wife and sexually abused his daughter. Ruth's mother, an Orthodox Jew who was as saintly as her husband was evil, lived a terrible, lonely loveless life with no hope of escape except through death. Ruth, contrasting her own misery, with the joy she saw in the lives of the African-American families amongst whom she lived, developed an attraction and love for black people that led her to escape to Harlem and to find the men who became her husbands and the fathers of her children.
Both cultures helped lead Ruth's children to success, the warmth and strength of struggling blacks in a rejecting America, and the Jewish commitment to education and community. Ruth Mc Bride abandoned Judaism (not surprisingly, it was impossible for her to separate Judaism from her father legacy) but Jewish traditions were imbued in her. She is the quintessential Jewish mother which, as you learn from this wonderful evocative book, is also the quintessential African-American mother, or in fact, a mother of any race or nationality whose only goal is that her children not know suffering. The book is particularly interesting as we continue to hear of tensions between the Black and Jewish communities in this country. This book is a reminder of how stupid both racists and anti-Semites are. If the fusion of Jews and Blacks could produce a family like the Mc Brides, one understands how much these two minorities could accomplish by laying aside the invective and focusing on a common American destiny that encompasses both people.
Rating:
Summary: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
Review: Why does a young Jewish woman who immigrated from Poland and spent her early life in rural Virginia move to an all-black neighborhood in New York City and deny that she's white? James McBride, her eighth child, finds that his life is full of such unanswered questions. "The Color of Water" is a sensitive and insightful book that chronicles a young biracial man's journey through both a troubled adolescence and the mystery that is his past. "Life on the Color Line" by G. Williams is a must-read on this topic, too
Rating:
Summary: Buy this book for your mother!
Review: This is one of the best books i have ever read! the racial issue between a black man's perception of his white mother is presented equally with the outpouring of love and respect he has for her; simply as a mother of 12 children in Harlem who put all her children through collge and grad school. the stories about trips to church, to camp, riding public tansport, getting homemade haircuts, and how awful a cook his mother was are universal and are presented evenly with the tender moments of love and respect and joy he has with his mother. the other half of this book is his mother's autobiography; the story of a young polish Jewish immigrant living in Jim Crow Virginia, abused by her father. the thinly veiled pain and anguish of memory that McBride's mother reveals futher illuminates his respect for his mother in his own chapters as he describes his mother founding a Baptist church in Harlem with his father. this book is a gift to mothers everywhere!
Rating:
Summary: The Color of Water
Review: During a time when interracial marriages were practically unheard of and racial conflicts were present, Ruth McBride Jordan, a remarkable, determined and eccentric woman ahead of her time, was overcoming racial stereotypes. Ruth (a white woman) married black men and had twelve children. She raised her children to be well educated and successful human beings. One of these children grew up to be a writer, James McBride. In his heartfelt dedication to his Jewish mother, The Color of Water, James McBride shows us his life during the Civil Rights Movement. More importantly, he also shows us his search for finding out where his roots lay. It's a memoir that was written more for the author's interest and not the reader's, which definitely makes it unique.
Throughout this book, the author tells the story of both his mother and himself. It skips back and forth in time, making quite an interesting story. In the beginning, we learn that Ruth McBride Jordan (born Rachel Deborah Shilsky), was raised Jewish but would later become Christian. This revealed how she raised her children. She raised her children strictly, just like she had been and would constantly encourage them to make education their first priority. She would say, "...educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!" The book focuses more on the life of Rachel and how she lived in a family with no love, plus a sexually abusive father. She feared living in Suffolk, Virginia, much like James feared for his mother's life during the Civil Rights Movement.
The story accurately accounts both people's lives and never causes the reader to lose interest. Despite all of his mother's constant encouragement, James strays into the dangerous life of drugs and violence, much like Rachel strayed into a dangerous life in New York City after leaving Suffolk, Virginia. James' dangerous life was eventually straightened up by the death of a friend, and he would later on go to college. Despite the loss of her first two husbands and mother, Ruth remained optimistic and founded a Baptist church with her third husband while putting her other children through college.
There are many humorous moments in this story as well. Seeing Ruth's household of children transform into hierarchy of power, while Ruth worked effortlessly into the night was amusing more than it was poignant. Though not perfectly structured, this story has a purpose. It gave the author a better sense of who he is, and can give many readers much more than that; valuable lessons in life.
This is a book that's interesting, emotional, and inspiring. Those who have never read this book should make a point of doing so, thereby they will not be disappointed. It can also serve as a damn good owner's manual on how to get along in this world.
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