Though the sentiments/life lessons here and in the companion title are heartfelt and important, there are much better ways to deliver them. Both address standing up for yourself and your values, laughing to ease troubles, being thankful, valuing friendship, persevering and dreaming big, being truthful, thinking through decisions, and being open to differences, among other topics. I hope you believe this is true.” A virtually identical book, Why a Daughter Needs a Dad, publishes simultaneously. In the backmatter, Alko cites the current statistics on gay marriage and hopes that “there will soon come a time when all people who love each other have the same rights as Sean and I have.” The “Suggestions for Further Reading” mentions both earlier books in the same tradition, such as Arnold Adoff and Emily Arnold McCully’s Black Is Brown Is Tan (1973, 2002), and contemporary ones that detail other civil rights struggles.ĭespite the gentle way this book unfolds, the language and images deal a blow to racist thinking and just might inspire the next generation of young civil rights activists.Īll the reasons why a daughter needs a mother.Įach spread features an adorable cartoon animal parent-child pair on the recto opposite a rhyming verse: “I’ll always support you in giving your all / in every endeavor, the big and the small, / and be there to catch you in case you should fall. Alko and Qualls reveal the double-layered nature of this story with a photograph of themselves this was the perfect story for a collaboration since their journey echoes the Lovings’. This story makes palatable for young readers a painful, personal and true story of the injustices interracial couples suffered as recently as 60 years ago.

They traveled to Washington, D.C., to marry legally, but when they returned and moved in together, the local police arrested and jailed them. But in the state of Virginia, miscegenation was illegal and punishable by imprisonment. Richard Loving, pale-skinned and vulnerable to sunburn, and Mildred Jeter, a brown-skinned woman of African-American and Cherokee descent, fell in love in 1958. Biography and autobiography intertwine in this account of the landmark case of Loving v.

The Case for Loving by Selina Alko