"See No Color provides a close look into one transracially adopted Black teen's life around the time she begins to think more reflectively about her blackness and adoptee-ness. While many would like to believe that adoption is a universally wonderful way to build a family, author Shannon Gibney makes plain through her protagonist Alex that being both black and adopted is complicated, especially in a world where competing voices and interests try to control representations of adoption in the media and adoption discourse itself. Gibney does not sugarcoat any of hardships that transracially adopted teens may face: she lays out the microaggressive and racist comments that family members say to Alex; explains why black children are considered 'special needs' and therefore are cheaper to adopt; and has Alex honestly and unapologetically describe both the shame and sense of wonderment she feels when she starts spending time with more black people. As the story unfolds, Alex comes to a better understanding of who she is as a black teenager in a white family and white world, but the journey is not easy, nor is it over by the book's end ('.I began to contemplate that things might never coalesce, and I wondered if there was a way that this could be okay' page 161). Because this novel grapples with many of the complexities, nuances, and realities that transracially adopted black persons face on a sometimes daily basis, and given that few young adult adoption narratives are written by adopted persons who can share from their own experiences, See No Color is a necessary read for any young person."Sarah Park Dahlen, Assistant Professor of Library Science and co-editor of Diversity in Youth Literature: Opening Doors Through Reading.
See No Color