Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It
by Sundee T. Frazier
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sundee T. FrazierEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-10-09
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Book Reviews of Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It
Book Review: Great writing, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
I thought the book was very well written. Brendan was a very engaging character and his family was very authentic. When I read the book to some fourth graders, they cracked up at Gladys and they loved Brendan's interactions with his friend Khalfani. The emotional sections with Ed and Brendan were very engaging.
That said, let me add this: It wasn't until my boy was 9 years old that I even brought up the subject of race. I didn't happen because someone had said something rude, it was because some politician was complaining about someone else being a racist. I work in a Title I school where there is a huge mix of racials groups.
When my child was 6,7,8 it never once occurred to him that people of different races didn't like each other. He had never seen an example of it. I had to tell him what racism was. I did. What if we just stopped talking and accusing and blaming and mentioning race for a whole generation? If everyone did it, then it would lose it's place in our society. Who was the 23rd president of the US? What is the 58th element of the periodic table? What is the largest city in Idaho? Things we dont' talk about constantly get forgotten. You could say, you don't know my situation, but I bet hardly anywhere is the situation as bad as it was 30 years ago. We keep pushing tolerance and racism awareness on our children -- so they know about it, and they know how to do it, and they know if they want to be bad they can be racist. If a child of another race bothers them, they now know a really mean word to say...
That's what holds me back on this book. Brendan is mixed, and of course he is the target of racism, much more than the real world. When people are racist in the real world, they do it because they are mean people and have learned how to be mean racially. There are so few people out there that actually think white people are better than black people. However they are so many people out there that like to be mean and hateful.
On the other hand, Gladys puts down white people, winks at the mom and says "no offense" -- huh? The Buckley family keep wondering how white people hate black people -- huh? These are both reverse racial stereotypes that are "expected" -- and guess what -- they are also being "taught" to our kids by this book, since that behavior is never potrayed as racist.
You want racism to go away? Quit talking about it. Don't tell your kids that everyone is equal, they already think that since no one has told them differently.
The problem is there is too much political and financial capital in constantly bringing up racism. -- so everyone does it.
Summary of Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It
Ten-year-old Tae Kwon Do blue belt and budding rock hound Brendan Buckley keeps a "Confidential" notebook for his top-secret scientific discoveries. And he's found something totally top secret. The grandpa he's never met, who his mom refuses to talk about or see, is an expert mineral collector and lives nearby! Secretly, Brendan visits Ed DeBose, whose skin is pink, not brown like Brendan's, his dad's, or that of Grampa Clem's, who recently died. Brendan sets out to find the reason behind Ed's absence, but what he discovers can't be explained by science, and now he wishes he'd never found him at all. . . .Multigenerational Books
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