Final Reflection

          I absolutely loved reading The Color of Water because it is very inspiring and moving. It inspired me a little because now I know that all that matters in my life is me. I don’t have to worry about other people and what they would think of me. Also, it helped me to appreciate being black more. Even though we still go through discrimination, I’ve learned to not let that get to me and that all I need to do is keep my head up and keep moving on. Some of the themes in the book such as hiding secrets and self motivation can help anyone with a family in life. Ruth McBride hid secrets about her family in her past to her present family now. That has tantalized her because she couldn’t really develop a stable relationship with her family. Self motivation helped James McBride a lot because he was able to accomplish many things. Those two lessons have definitely taught me two life lessons because know I know that I should share things that happened in the past to my family because I could develop a stronger relationship with them. Also, I will know now to keep motivating my family because they will and can do anything as long as they try and keep their head held high. My initial and final impression for this book were very different because I thought that this book was going to be able the average black kid who had to face challenges of having a white mother. I didn’t know there would be a deeper meaning to the title of the book and I’m glad I explored. The other memoir we read in class, Maus, had different initial and lasting impressions. My initial impression was that this would just be another memoir about someone’s life during the Holocaust. My final impression was that Art wasn’t a good son because he called his father a murder just because he burned his wife’s diary and now he wouldn’t be able to put it in his book about his dad. I didn’t really like the ending of Maus because it didn’t end happy. The only reason why I loved The Color of Water is because it ended with something uplifting.