Rating: 
Summary: marvellous
Review: A beuatifully written book about a mulatto son and her white mother, The Color of water stands out as one of the most inspiring books I have ever read. It shows how through courage, a sense of direction, unity and sacrifice, a person can achieve sucess in present day America.
Also recommended: THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES, DREAMS FROM MY FATHER,THE GODFATHER
Rating:
Summary: A great tribute
Review: When I first picked up "The Color of Water", I never thought it would be such a moving story. In fact it is one of the most gripping and inspirational books I have read. I adore it. I read it over two years ago and still remember its first impact. The book is a combination of two profound stories coming from a white mother and her black son. It is actually about an Orthodox Jewish girl who emigrated from Poland with her family to Virginia and escapes the life she had ever known to New York, where she ended up marrying a black man and living in the black community. In all, she raises her twelve children from her two marriages and despite the odds against her and children successfully managed her family into a success story. Flawed but genuine, strong and committed she served as an inspiration for people in imperfect circumstances.The author's voice is strong, captivating and authentic. His intelligent mind served as a perfect repertoire to make this book the compelling read that it is today. I read it again when I had finished, so as to get the complete feel of the book . This story is sweet, intimate and more. It can make you cry and still be strong. I strongly recommend this beautiful work.
Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, EFURU
Rating:
Summary: A Heartfelt Tribute
Review: I really enjoyed this book. James McBride tells the story of his mother and of his own life, intertwining chapters to give you an understanding of his mother's struggles and how she has affected and impacted him. James McBride's mother was a Polish Orthodox Jew who never felt completely accepted by others. To whites, she was different because she was Jewish, while to blacks she was different because she was white. She moved to New York when she was 19, married McBride's black father and had 8 children. After her husband died she married another black man and had 4 more children.
This book is a tribute to James McBride's mother, but more than that it is the story of a family who was able to achieve success and prosperity. McBride's mother was one of few whites in a predominantly black neighborhood, and his family one of the few bi-racial families at the time. His mother made education a priority and all 12 of her children went to college. McBride's writing makes his love and admiration for his mother clear, and the writing is quite moving. I really enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Summary: Superficial and lacking in depth
Review: James McBride's mother is truely a remarkable and awe inspiring woman. Raising 12 children, mostly by herself, with little to no money, and getting them all into college is beyond amazing. However, I found his book to be an atrocious read. His mother's story is more linear with random stories of McBride's childhood thrown in between chapters. The book jumps around with McBride's story from different points in his childhood that don't seem to have any point or merit.
My bookclub choose this book because the subject matter was appealing. However, collectively we were very disappointed. McBride's attempts to show his true emotions fell short as they came across very superficial and in some cases, cliche. McBride is truly a lost sole and this book reflects that.
His mother's story was very appealing and I was very disappointed that the book didn't focus on her more closely. McBride's story of his childhood growing up in a time of racial unrest with a white mother has a lot of appear, but he fails to really show the reader what that life must have been like. In many instances it seemed that just as he started to scratch the surface of his emotions, the chapter would end and he would move on to another random and disconnected memory.
A very disappointing read.
Rating:
Summary: This is an author who doesn't want to know....
Review: Reading this book made me angry, and reading all the 5-star reviews only made it worse. The book makes clear that the author's mother abandoned her entire Jewish family, married an African-American after apparently having no social life whatsoever except having previously become pregnant by what seems to have been a con man, never contacted her Jewish family again after she abandoned them except to ask them for money, and never thereafter went to see her mother even when the mother was dying in a hospital a quick train ride away. She converted to Christianity and then spent a lifetime concealing information about her past from her children. When one son, a sometime-reporter, decided that her story would make a good book, he took down uncritically a frankly completely unbelievable story about a miserly, money-hungry, child-abusing, wife-abusing, violent rabbi father, someone who seems to have stepped off the pages of an anti-Semitic tract. The Jewish family life described in this book comes right out of the pages of the Jew of Malta, complete with bloodthirsty and barbaric rituals, mindless rules, usury, and utter hatred of others. In writing this up, the son makes no effort to contact his living aunt or many living cousins who might have cast any doubt on his mother's story. Given that even to the casual reader it is apparent that the mother's tale is a carefully constructed rationalization and justification of her own decision to cut all family ties, the son's uncritical acceptance of this fable is shocking. I would take this as a work of fiction until proven otherwise.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I had 2 read this frashman year in HS and was mad because we had 2 read over summer break, but i sure was happy we had to read this. every page gets better and better.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, Moving, and Inspiring Memoir
Review: This memoir has identified James McBride as an inspiring author who honors, respect, and identifies that his mother is white. This memoir is about James McBride going behind his mom's history and finding out why his mom is white and why he is black. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother is an astounding book and I absolutely love reading the book. I have read it in two days and I have never read a book the way I read The Color or Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. I have read it twice already and I will continue reading it over and over because this book is truly wonderful. Many moments in the book are heartbreaking, moving, and shocking. Other than this being a great book, I find it to be a great experience in reading it.
This book is truly a wonderful, moving, and inspiring memoir.
Rating: 
Summary: Religion and Education
Review: I am not that enamoured of the heroine of this book, Ruth McBride Jordan, nee Shilsky. I wonder if there may have been something in her Jewish heritage that instilled the love of education in her and which she passed on to her 12 children. Did she have to become a Baptist to do this ?
Rating:
Summary: I CRIED
Review: I read this book in two days while on a cruise ship. Instead of partying it up on the ship, I was in my room reading!! I could not put it down. It was a very sweet, intimate book... more like a lover letter... from a son to his mother. I rarely cry from books, but this one had the tears flowing!! A strong statement, but I would have to say it is probably my favorite book. Read it!
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