This is a fantastic book that would work well for the campus reading program. It weaves together timely issues of race, class, gender as it focuses on the growing friendship between a Harvard educated Asian American teacher (who is also a child of immigrants), and an African American young man who serves time in prison for murder. But, this is no ordinary memoir. Kuo documents her years in the Delta, a place where the educational system is failing the students, jobs are almost non-existent, and access to any forms of culture from movie theaters to bookstores is absent. Kuo interweaves African American history and uses the works of Frederick Douglass, among others, to connect the past to the present day reality for impoverished Blacks in the American South. Kuo’s picture of the Delta is bleak, yet she juxtaposes the extreme poverty, ramshackle architecture, and desolation with the natural beauty that continues to persist despite neglect. Kuo also self-reflects on her privilege as the child of parents who would do anything for her education and whose status as an Asian American gives her access to a world that many of her students have been excluded from. Kuo also (and quite beautifully) comments on the base human needs between people. As a teacher, she helps her former student learn to appreciate poetry, craft letters to his daughter, and find ways of using the written word to help heal some of his despair. We also get to go along with Kuo when she leaves the Delta, spends time in New York and San Francisco and lives the life of a post-college, and then post-law school grad. From the start, she is idealistic, daring and willing to disappoint her parents for what she believes she must do. The writing is gorgeous. The commentary on the underfunded criminal justice system and educational system in a so-called developed nation is sickening but necessary knowledge. The way that junior high and high-schoolers learn to love books is heartbreaking in its simplicity. Kuo took young people and showed them that they could escape the world and look into the mind of another and soon students began to carry both fiction and memoirs with pride. This book crosses disciplines and would work well in courses in Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies, African American Studies, History, American Studies, Social Studies, Education, and English Literature. The book was published in 2017 and favorably reviewed in The Atlantic. One passage that stands out and depicts Kuo’s hopefulness as well as questioning of our base need for connection is the following: “But then what is a human for? A person must matter to another, it must mean something for two people to have passed time together, to have put work into each other and into becoming more fully themselves.” What Kuo teaches Patrick opens his mind to possibility. What Patrick teaches Kuo seems infinite.
I read “Reading With Patrick” as well and I didn’t find it as engaging and as relevant as “The Distance Between Us.” It seems that many books and movies have represented the experience of the young, more privileged teacher coming to an underserved part of the country to work with African American students in poverty. I am not sure our students will relate to either narrative closely, that of the teacher who, in the face of pressure from immigrant parents, went to Harvard Law School, or that of rural poverrty and increration in the deeply segregated south. The author, herself is clearly an inspiration and I admire her greatly.
“Reading with Patrick” is an incredible book that should be read by all student teachers. It is beautifully written and raises a wealth of issues that student teachers should ponder at length in a structured learning environment. As such, I don’t believe that it would work well as a campus reading selection. Kuo’s memoir incorporates compelling stories that merit deep discussion, but her narrative is not driven by stories in a way that would immediately invite all of our students to continue reading. I don’t mean that it’s too sophisticated; it’s just that the material is presented in a way that does not immediately hook a reader. I recommend that we refer this book to the College of Education for their consideration on how to incorporate the book into their teacher education programs.
This is a fantastic book that would work well for the campus reading program. It weaves together timely issues of race, class, gender as it focuses on the growing friendship between a Harvard educated Asian American teacher (who is also a child of immigrants), and an African American young man who serves time in prison for murder. But, this is no ordinary memoir. Kuo documents her years in the Delta, a place where the educational system is failing the students, jobs are almost non-existent, and access to any forms of culture from movie theaters to bookstores is absent. Kuo interweaves African American history and uses the works of Frederick Douglass, among others, to connect the past to the present day reality for impoverished Blacks in the American South. Kuo’s picture of the Delta is bleak, yet she juxtaposes the extreme poverty, ramshackle architecture, and desolation with the natural beauty that continues to persist despite neglect. Kuo also self-reflects on her privilege as the child of parents who would do anything for her education and whose status as an Asian American gives her access to a world that many of her students have been excluded from. Kuo also (and quite beautifully) comments on the base human needs between people. As a teacher, she helps her former student learn to appreciate poetry, craft letters to his daughter, and find ways of using the written word to help heal some of his despair. We also get to go along with Kuo when she leaves the Delta, spends time in New York and San Francisco and lives the life of a post-college, and then post-law school grad. From the start, she is idealistic, daring and willing to disappoint her parents for what she believes she must do. The writing is gorgeous. The commentary on the underfunded criminal justice system and educational system in a so-called developed nation is sickening but necessary knowledge. The way that junior high and high-schoolers learn to love books is heartbreaking in its simplicity. Kuo took young people and showed them that they could escape the world and look into the mind of another and soon students began to carry both fiction and memoirs with pride. This book crosses disciplines and would work well in courses in Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies, African American Studies, History, American Studies, Social Studies, Education, and English Literature. The book was published in 2017 and favorably reviewed in The Atlantic. One passage that stands out and depicts Kuo’s hopefulness as well as questioning of our base need for connection is the following: “But then what is a human for? A person must matter to another, it must mean something for two people to have passed time together, to have put work into each other and into becoming more fully themselves.” What Kuo teaches Patrick opens his mind to possibility. What Patrick teaches Kuo seems infinite.
I read “Reading With Patrick” as well and I didn’t find it as engaging and as relevant as “The Distance Between Us.” It seems that many books and movies have represented the experience of the young, more privileged teacher coming to an underserved part of the country to work with African American students in poverty. I am not sure our students will relate to either narrative closely, that of the teacher who, in the face of pressure from immigrant parents, went to Harvard Law School, or that of rural poverrty and increration in the deeply segregated south. The author, herself is clearly an inspiration and I admire her greatly.
“Reading with Patrick” is an incredible book that should be read by all student teachers. It is beautifully written and raises a wealth of issues that student teachers should ponder at length in a structured learning environment. As such, I don’t believe that it would work well as a campus reading selection. Kuo’s memoir incorporates compelling stories that merit deep discussion, but her narrative is not driven by stories in a way that would immediately invite all of our students to continue reading. I don’t mean that it’s too sophisticated; it’s just that the material is presented in a way that does not immediately hook a reader. I recommend that we refer this book to the College of Education for their consideration on how to incorporate the book into their teacher education programs.