Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness

"A necessary children’s book about whiteness, white supremacy, and resistance.

Higginbotham’s text includes both dialogue among white adults and a white girl grappling with her growing race consciousness and additional text that references and unpacks the ideas in that dialogue. The connective tissue between these two essential pieces of the book can be weak, but the book as a whole is sure to spark conversations, and its collage art and DIY aesthetic may encourage creative expression. The dialogue begins when the girl overhears snippets of a news story about a police officer (whose white hand is shown holding a gun) killing an unarmed black man. “Oh no, not again,” says her mother, covering her eyes, and the girl asks “What? show more Mom. What ‘not again’?” Instead of responding, Mom turns off the TV and dodges questions, asserting, “Our family is kind to everyone. We don’t see color.” The girl grows increasingly frustrated and eventually seeks information independently while also asserting that she does see color and knows “that what that police officer did was wrong!” Precisely how she came to this raised consciousness isn’t clear, and no adults seem sympathetic or overtly supportive. Narrative text directed at readers (perhaps also absorbed by the girl as she reads?) highlights white people engaged in anti-racist activism, and it avoids undermining itself by also placing historical and contemporary black activism at the center. Curiously, however, the text excludes people of other races from its discussion.

Important, accessible, needed. (Picture book. 5-12)" www.kirkusreviews.com show less

The theme is one I was all in for and parts of the book had me nodding my head in agreement and saying "Yes, white people! Tell your kids about these things and start thinking about what it's like for people who look different than you do!" The book in it's entirety, though, just felt lacking. It kept feeling like it would get close to making a great point about what racism is or describing some situation so a child would understand it, but then the implied news story or incident would fall flat because of lack of explanation. The book is about how parents can keep kids in the dark about racism and terrible things happening because of it in the world today so they need to speak up and demand to be let in on the conversation, yet this show more book is hiding many things.

Honestly, I wouldn't read this again. I had to fill in so many gaps while reading with my kids that I would've been better off if I just came up with the content myself based on the pics in the book or, idk...um...TALK TO MY KIDS AS THINGS HAPPEN, as well as having ongoing conversations to combat systemic and individual racism. Shouldn't we all be doing this? Shouldn't we help our children to understand what is happening and why when they see or hear bad things? Shouldn't shutting racism down start with white people making sure we aren't creating racists and also trying our hardest to shut down those white supremacist KKK fuckers who already waste too much air and space on this planet? show less

This books attempts to take on what it means to be white in the 21st century. It is a hand-made book, with collages, and hand-written script. The simplicity of the book does not take away from the gut-punches about racism in the United States, however, and includes a strong call-to-action at the end of the book that “Whiteness is a Bad Deal, but you can be white without signing on to Whiteness.” This book tries to tackle a VERY complicated subject matter (whiteness) in limited space and with children as the audience. I am not sure it is completely successful, and I would suspect that children would need a capable adult to process the book after reading it.

I would give this book a million stars if I could. It is such an important message, that racism is not just a problem for the people on the receiving end of injustice, but racism is a White person's problem as well. This is the clearest, simplest, presentation of this I have ever read and every white parent should share it with their children.

Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness

I Picked Up This Book Because: Influencer on IG

Media Type: eBook
Source: P Public Library
Dates Read: 2/18/25 - 2/19/25
Rating: 3 Stars

The Story:

I know I am not the target audience for this book. Visually the paper collage thing, while original, is not appealing. The subject is difficult and presented age appropriately but at a very surface level. It doesn't address the whys or suggest any action other than you have to figure out the truth yourself. I do like how it says racism is not your idea, you do not have to support it.

The story of young white child as she goes through the process of awakening from her state of racial privilege. The book challenges the reader to become an up-stander against racism and ignorance. "Racism was not your idea. You don't need to defend it."

This is not a perfect book, but it's so necessary.

I think Betsy Bird's goodreads review said everything I'd want to say about this book. I'll just add: the subject heading for this book is "Whites -- Race Identity -- Juvenile Literature" and it's the only book my large library system has with that subject.