The author Kasha Jegede reached out to me about reading and reviewing her book titles “My Name is…” This book is about a young woman who moved with her father and stepmother, and she started a new school Where Oyindasola is making a name for herself one way or another. My Name is, is about a young girl who has faced a lot of challenges from being divided not only from her color of her skin and for her name. All Oyindasola wants to do is find who she is and find her place in life like most people. While doing so she will have to filter through some drama and teach her new friends and classmates about her and her culture.
My name is, is a short story book it is only 135 pages. I love that in the back of this book there are group discussion questions. I also love the poems in the back of the book as well. The message that this story gives is “Self- Appreciation and friendship” two of the things younger women of color should learn about. I love that in this book Oyindasola corrects every single person who said her name incorrectly or tried to modify it to make it easier on themselves.
I understand where she was coming from because I too have a name that is hard to say and is spelled incorrectly. I love the amount of confidence that Oyindasola has that kind of confidence the kind I wish I had growing up. I would let people call me the wrong name or tell them they can call me somethings else for short.
I like that this book was resalable when it comes to correcting others on how to say my name and why it is only okay to call me by my nick name if I tell you its okay. Nothing I dislike more is someone calling me Nitra or NeNe and I didn’t give them that right to. Like I understand that’s what you hear others calling me, but did I give you permission to do so? And this book helped me realized that its not being mean to correct others if they are saying it wrong.
I love the poems in the back of the book. I truly loved the poem titled “love your skin that’s in the back of the book. I just love the message. Very relatable for me. I truly enjoyed this book and the writing style of this author. I loved that it was an easy read and that you could read it in one setting. I would recommend this book to young adults. This book is not so much a book for adults, but it is a good read, it has about 15 questions in the back of the book to go over if you choose to read this book with others.
In this book it was a lot of names that I was unable to pronounce I can’t think of anyone but the white kids having an easy name to pronounce. If I had to rate this book I would give it 3/5. I enjoyed it the names made it a bit challenging to read, But I enjoyed the overall message.
That’s So Nitra Blog 