The premise behind this book sounds great until you actually read it. It’s ostensibly about a community of diverse people coming together and out growing their own biases about one another, but considering this is written by a white man in the 90s, it fails. The author relies on his own understanding of race to write this story, which is heavily flawed and biased. His own racism comes out and contrasts heavily against his aim of tolerance and acceptance.

One character, a Korean woman, narrated her chapter in the stereotypical broken English trope that mocks Asian people. Several white characters refer to their black neighbors as “negroes” with the excuse being that those white characters are old, and yet this takes place in the 90s when that term would be considered outdated and offensive. One character derides her neighbors, implying that relying on welfare checks is shameful and greedy.

In one chapter, a white character and a character of color talk about how the white character had previously discriminated against the character of color. That white character apologizes and defends herself, saying “Back then, I didn’t know it was you…” A different character is at first suspicious of a black child who hangs around the garden, just for the child being black. But once that character gets to know the child, he remarks, “He was not a black teenage boy. He was Royce.”

This is the author’s idea of tolerance and acceptance. With white people ignoring a part of POC’s identity in order to treat them with dignity. For a book that is used to teach children about discrimination and acceptance, it advances the idea of color blind racism. It is a book of its time and its author, but now there are much better books to talk about race and acceptance with children.