Where to go from here
Sliding Into Home (SIH) is a book for all ages. I thought I wrote a Middle Grade novel but my readers have informed me that the breadth and depth of the topics touched upon in SIH appeal to adults and kids alike.
A recently divorced mother thanked me for SIH as it opened dialogue and gave her two sons language to put to the complex feelings they were holding inside. “I would read to them before bed and the talking would begin,” she said. It is often easier for kids to access painful and confusing emotions through the stories of others. Flip and Kaylee’s inner and shared dialogue about the ways their parents’ divorce impacts them shows adolescent readers that they are not alone. Parents can help facilitate conversation by asking their kids questions about Flip and Kaylee’s experiences offering a once removed opportunity for their kids to reflect upon their own.
An octogenarian reader whose Jewish family experienced explicit and implicit racism shared with me that she never thought she was racist until reading SIH and recognizing the ways implicit racism existed within herself. “I really learned something about myself from your book.” She was curious and interested in learning more about implicit racism and eager to notice the ways in which she moved in the world and inadvertently discriminated against people of color. Through Flip’s experience in the tourist shop, and his conversations with Ricki, this eighty-year-old reader was able to identify and change patterns of behavior and thought she was unaware she had.
The mother of a trans-racially adopted child told me her son carries SIH in his backpack and that he has read it at least four times. I can only hope that whatever it is about the book that calls him to keep it so close SIH will guide him towards his own sense of home within.
And a ninety-year-old neighbor read SIH and said, “Honey it’s not that I don’t know all this exists – but your writing, the way you told the story is so impressive. I couldn’t put the book down.” Later she told me she gave my book to a friend’s daughter who has children and is going through a divorce. Her confidence in this book as a guide and a tool for the entire family made my heart sing. This above all else is my dream – that SIH will not only make kids and adults laugh and reflect but that it will be a guide for those whose lives are touched by discrimination, divorce, and adoption and that it will serve as a bridge and a portal to topics not commonly discussed for people of all ages.
After a long marketing, blogging hiatus I am turning my attention once again towards moving SIH into the hands of those who may learn, grow and benefit from Flip and Kaylee’s story. As I guide my courageous, vocal trans-racially adopted LGBTQ teen through the complexities of growing up in a country whose institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia and discrimination are openly celebrated by many I am determined to make change in the ways I am able.
If Sliding Into Home has touched you, your children or a friend please let me know how. And share your thoughts and discoveries and the book with others around you.