Excellent Book

I finally finished my D book: Don't Call Us Out of Name by Lisa Dodson.! I've been reading it forever. It took me a long time to finish it, not because it was bad. On the contrary, it was excellent! It just took me a long time because of being busy, and because I wanted to savor it. It was such a great book, and I learned a LOT from it. One time I was reading it in bed, and it was so good and right on that I got all excited and jumped right out of bed yelling, "this book is so good!!!"

It is a sociological study of women and girls growing up in poverty in America. Their lives mirror those of many of my students. It helped me to understand my students a lot better. Too bad I didn't read this book a few years ago. I highly recommend this book, especially if you work in education in a medium to large city. Or work in human services in any way. Or if you have a heart.

Why that title, Don't Call Us Out of Name? It means, don't disrespect us, both by calling us bad names such as slut, and by trying to categorize us which removes our humanity. Terms like "welfare mother" would be an example of wrongly categorizing people and belittling them.