As the title states, Breath is a letter to the author's young sons. It is a celebration of their beauty, their gifts, and the love of their mother for them as well as the bonds of the family, including and importantly extended family as well. It is also the outcry of a mother who knows her children are facing a world hostile to them as men of color and a call to them to retain their integrity, their creativity, and their joy of living and loving despite the dangers that surround them.Perry, who

I picked it up Breathe for @thestackspod Book Club and I'm so glad I did as it is a beautiful and poignant book on raising Black sons in America. It’s so intensely personal and Imani Perry’s writing is just stunning. She is rightfully adamant about her sons claiming their joy and beauty in a country which is stacked against them. Even people who aren't parents will be moved by the tenderness with which Perry recollects precious memories from her sons' births and lives..She opens up a window into...

The privileged ones take breaths for granted. Eric Garner’s last few breaths remained splattered on the New York streets hung up in a corrupt chokehold. The privileged ones have space and room to breathe freely. However, George Floyd’s racially profiled arrest depicts a man pinned down like a wild boar, with a knee lodged on his neck, by three police officer unable to breathe freely for nearly 9 minutes. These are only two cases of police brutality in U.S. history that may cause a shock to your

Deeply personal, meandering, a treasure. Longer review likely to follow.

This is a great book. It is the mother’s companion to BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME. It is thoughtful and poetic and Perry drops so many gems. There is lots to think about in this book and could easily require multiple rereads to really understand all that Perry has done with this book.

Beautifully rendered both in prose and wisdom. I found many parallels here to my own thinking. I can easily relate being a parent. Imani Perry uses delicate cultured prose to write to her two sons, and in the process manages to give them family history, her hopes, desires, dreams and even her fears as they navigate this thing called life. What ends up between the pages is a beautiful document of stressing their worth and how to hold onto that and always see themselves, even when others may refus...

Perry writes that she was approached to write this book, and my guess is that the publishers were looking for a "mom" version of Coates' Between the World in Me. And Perry certainly covers some of the same themes, though there is a larger positivity to this book. Coates' book was like a punch to the gut, and with that, it impacted me more. But I do think that this one deserves a second - and slower -- read.

This gorgeous book is a prayer or a mantra. It is the second book of Dr.Perry’s that I have inhaled this year, and its maternal, ethereal poetry is a balm for these times. It is authentic testimony on behalf of herself and her ancestors and ourselves and our ancestors of what it looks like to hold babies with tenderness in a world that believes that Black children are never new or babies or deserving of tenderness and care. What I do appreciate about Breathe is its tenderness, truly a reflection...

Wow wow wow, this was stunning and smart. Yes, the comparisons to Ta-Nehisi Coates will definitely come, and in many ways this does serve as a companion of sorts. But while Coates grapples with the pain and the history that he knows his son will have to face, Perry also insists on joy and fullness for her sons. She insists on humanity. She is a beautiful storyteller and weaver of texts. This is a book that should be in the hands of any white educator who works with black male students - we need

“Some [love] we give to our young; some they fashion from their own living. And they teach us in the process. They are doing so. Because every second-person sentence devoted to them in these pages is to all of us. It is received wisdom from their witness and passionate hope for their futures. We, you, they, do not have to fight a whole society over its terms to find another way of living as long as you love the right ones, freshly, and in the immediacy of your connection. And when you do fight,

"I think I am orchestrating your futures as I parent. But the trust is, you teach me who you are much better than I teach you who I think you should be. You have insisted I listen as an act of care. Even when I want to preach and profess. You insist I live by my word to care. Listening is care. You insist to me reminders that you are the engineers of your own lives. Not Me. I am just to feed and nourishments hyou, to make space for you to feed yourself."⁠⠀⁠⠀Breathe: a Letter to My Sons by Imani

This is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in a while, potentially ever. There is so much depth to it that I’m sure I will need to reread it to grasp every detail. Highly recommend that everyone reads it. “How do you become in a world bent on you not being and not becoming?”“Your love is an exceeding sun.”

If you've read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, you will appreciate the perspective of Imani Perry in Breathe: A Letter to My Sons.Where Coates was contemplative in describing the effects of having grown up in a system designed for his failure and prosecution--on the way he approaches the fathering of his son--Perry is urgent in conveying that, though the world was not built to accommodate her son's Blackness, their Blackness is no less beautiful...even if the world wants to convey

Truly one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. One of the best books I've ever read. There is so much in these pages. I think one of my biggest takeaways was the beautiful way that she talked about how "that could have been my child" is not the right response when looking at death of Black boys (all Black ppl, but Black boys especially bc she's writing to her sons), because it was not. Because it is enough to mourn that it happened to one child and what makes us mourn is not that it cou...

A poetic, intimate, honest, reflective and powerful book extending beyond the framework of a letter from a mother to her sons. Every single page is rooted in love. I’ll certainly return to this book again.

I read this book in order to participate in a church-wide reading effort, and I wanted to like it. Truly, I did. But it was still a slog. I confess to being a practical, down-to-earth sort of person. I'm not particularly proud of that; I confess as well that most poetry and virtually all descriptive tags alongside pieces of modern art in museums leave me scratching my head in confusion . . . and significant parts of this book felt exactly like that to me. Some parts rang very true: I am a mother...

While reading this I found it interesting and beautifully written, but I have to admit that almost before I finished I found myself struggling to remember what I had read 30 or 40 pages before. It was hard to stay focused ad find a through idea while reading, and after reading I simply don't remember it in a meaningful way. I would absolutely not discourage anyone from reading it, but this book wasn't sticky enough for me to recommend.

Transparency and honesty from a mother's heart and how her love and sons are iimpacted in a nation that at times, devalues their humanity.

A powerful start to my reading for 2020, Imani Perry's "Breathe" speaks to and for mothers who are raising Black boys in the paradox of 21st century America, where they can be viable candidates for president but also be killed with impunity by police officers or White citizens just for existing. Perry doesn't offer easy answers, but she gives voice to the questions and concerns that many radical Black feminists (especially those of us who were Southern born and Christian bred) as we try to paren...

“The time for unearthing is always now.” BREATHE by Imani Perry is beautiful and powerful, and it’s the best memoir I’ve read all year. I read this book slowly, to soak it in instead of rushing to “create content.” This letter to her sons is also a meditation that reckons with what it means to be Black in America. It’s cerebral and emotional in all the best ways literature can be.I had a lengthy review written but decided to scrap it. This book does not need my performance. Just read the damn bo...