My Name is Why

My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay
Reviewed by Mimi
📕📕📕📕

This book is uncomfortable and important in equal measure.

We hear the story of a young Black man, taken from his mother against her will and placed with a white family. They give him back to the system as things don't work out as they had planned and Lemn, named Norman, gets passed through the system. How Lemn goes through this traumatic and uncaring upbringing to bring us something as sensitive as this memoir is astonishing.

The system failed him. The system that is supposed to care for children gave him no affection and no support. He was lied to for so much of his life and against all odds, has written something that hits you deep with its excerpts from the social worker reports intertwined with a narrative that really follows his journey of discovery.

Even his name being changed to "fit in". What kind of society takes a child's name? That is the only thing we have and the first thing we own.

This book needs to be read and I'd put aside some thinking time for after you finish it.