African-American-Health Books

When I first ordered this book, I had no idea of the treat I was in for. Reading the author's own experiences (not unlike those of many of us; I was one of the ones whose own hair was loosely curled or "good"), we get a glimpse into just how much we've been taught to despise our own standards of beauty and accept another standard of beauty. As another one of my favorite authors (and hair naturalists) Lonnice Brittenum Bonner brought out in her book "Good Hair: For Colored Girls Who've Considered Weaves When the Chemicals Became Too Ruff", children are not born hair outlaws; they were created. Fortunately for us, it is not too late to educate ourselves and our children on the beauty of our own natural hair. For any parent or guardian (I have my niece with me) with children with a head full of beautiful, springy curls, this is a must-read.

I am a caucasian parent of twin girls of African American heritage. I was hoping for some solid information about hair care do's and don'ts. The girls' hair is not of the same texture that is discussed throughout the book and treatment of different textures is not addressed. The sections on infant care and shampooing were good, although I'm not sure they're applicable to us. I was able to take away some useful tidbits of information but I would feel more confident if my girls' hair matched that of the models in the book.

As for the styles, I think if I tried to do any of them that I would have a problem. The photos get you started but some additional photos could fill in the details.

This book is awesome. I have had many chemicals placed in my hair. Now that I am trying to go natural, and making sure my daughter does not make the same mistake, I find the book provides good information even for myself. The author knows her stuff.

I've read the good reviews so I was excited to get the book. I was dissapointed because I feel that it's more for black children or I guess children with "kinki" hair hence the title of the book.
It's basic hair care that alot of us who are familiar with black hair already know. If you aren't familiar with black hair then this is the book for you. If you have a biracial child and their texture is on the curly side then this is not the book for you! People who are not familiar with the different textures of black hair assume that curly and kinki are the same, it's not!
Now the search goes on for another book...

I was searching for a book on hair care for black children. I used the prior reviews to make my decision to buy this book and hoped that it was as good as stated. I love the book! It provides an education on how to care for black children's hair. These same techniques can also be applied on adult hair. I wear long locks, my oldest daughter wears small locks and youngest daughter wears her hair in various natural styles. I especially appreciated the references to natural hair products such as jojoba and essential oils to style and condition hair. The book provided techniques on how to relax children prior to hair care and emphasized making sure chilren are occupied while actually doing the hair (braiding, locking etc). The book touches on our various hair textures and educates on the types of tools (combs, brushes, hair pins etc) one should use on these various hair types. It also provides a small section on hair accessories such as beading. The book is written in simple language and also provides pictures of various hair styles for children. I highly recommend this book for all and especially new parent of African American children or rather all children of African descent. In countries where European type straight hair is the majority (tv,movies, magazines), it is especially important to keep magazines, and books that show natural hair styles. Show these to the children often so that they understand how to take care of, style, appreciated natural hair and see beautifully styled natural hair.
I also recommend the following:
-Dreads
-Carol's Daughter Mimosa Hair Honey
-Carol's Daughter Healthy Hair Butter
-Carol's Daughter Tui Leave-In Conditioner

I use this book for reading groups in my first grade class. It provides many opportunities for wonderful discussions.

The Stories Julian Tells is a book that has six stories. You should read all the stories! One of the stories is about a father that makes a pudding!

I didn't like this book because it doesn't have good stories. I reccomend this book to someone who likes girl books. I did not like the stories in the book because they were confusing to me. I was confused on the pudding story because they said, "You ate some, so I have to eat some, I ate some," over and over again. That's all I have to write.

The Stories Julian Tells is a book that has six stories. You should read all the stories! One of the stories is about a father that makes a pudding!

My review is about a boy named Julian and his little brother, Huey. Julian tells a lot of different things to his brother. Julian is a person who like to trick his little brother. His little brother thinks thses things are real, so he keeps asking his big brother, Julian, questions about these things. I thought this book was really good. I think the author was thinking about what he and his brother used to do together when they were little.

I was discouraged to learn that this book was no longer in print, but after doing a little research found that it can be purchased at www.cornrowsandco.com for $19.95 plus shipping. I hopes this is helpful to someone!

As a natural hair care provider, of un-processed/chemically free African-American hair textures, I purchased this book to offer my little clients some styling options for their natural hair. I love showing my little clients and their parents this book. It gives some great brief articles on proper management of our youth's hair. And OHHHH the young girls and boys in the book are adorable. Now if you are looking for step by step instructions of how to achieve the hairstyles showcased then this book is not for you. However there are a few step by step or diagram instructions on a few of the styles. I feel that this book is a must have for parents/guardians etc. of African-American children. Even if one is creatively or dexterity challenged in hairstyling this book has something to offer.

This book offered great pictures of many hairstyles that can be recreated on a varity of textures and lengths of hair. This book also offered great advice on how to properly care for childrens hair. If you want to learn how to braid hair, this book does offer some instruction. But in order to learn to braid, twist, part, etc. hair, you will have to practice. This book will provide many hairstyles for you to use for practice and/or so your child will look cute.

Fun format and plenty of beautiful high quality photos. This is a great book for non-nappy haired parents of nappy-haired kids. It is well written with fun style ideas your children will love. Makes hair styling funner and more POSITIVE! Good book to have in your collection.

I received this book as a gift from my cousin. This was a well thought out gift. The photographs are soooooooooo cute. My daughter enjoys looking at the photograps of the children's natural hair styles. It is a good book to use to enforce positive hair images in African American children. I enjoyed reading outloud the positive words that described each style to my daughter. This book includes instructions on how to do each hair style. A good book to have in your hair library.

This is an excellent book for the health conscious Afrikan,not only do you get optimum health benefits but an elaborate and insightful history lesson on the caucasian consortium of melanin pirates out to destroy and annihilate the perfect black races off the planet. This book details in a medical perspective the vast differences between caucasians(melanin deficient by up to 60%)and Afrikans(who should be eating 90% raw foods like our Ancestors)and will point you in the right direction for optimum health. There are very interesting entries on the caucasian history of destructive behavior and why. Where the word nutrition comes from and where the first holistic pharmacy originated(don't just take his word for it do the research..I did)and when to eat and when not to for digestive health and much more..over 400 pages worth. It is essential information that we MUST heed before the human genome apocalypse is realized.

I bought this book because I thought it would point me in the right direction nutritionally. It seems to me this is just an outright attack on nutrition WITHOUT real solutions. This is the classic "Tell you what's wrong without presenting realistic ways to make it right." I was very disappointed and there are plenty of other books that actually outline nutritional solutions that you could buy.

Llaila O. Afrika teaches you everything about how to properly live & eat in this fantastic book.

Key components of this book include:

-Proper food combining (Eating Fruits Alone, Not mixing starch with proteins, Drinking 1 hour before you put solids in your stomach....& lots of other ways of properly eating)
-Origin of cooked foods (Europeans)
-Harmful ingredients in your cosmetics. (The atrocity of these genocidal ingredients is mind blowing)
-Vaccines (Why you should not vaccinate you & your family)
-AIDS, (How you cannot catch AIDS or any other type of disease as long you are eating & treating yourself right)
-Vitamin/Mineral deficiencies in your diet & how to correct many problems in your life.

The main basis of this book is comparing on how AFRIKAN culture is the SUPERIOR right way of living compared to backwards wrong way living INFERIOR CAUCASIAN culture.

We as melanated people have to get back to how we were living. (pre-european)
A 100% Raw Vegan Food Diet.
The culture of Maat.
Not being a "Monkey-SEE-Monkey-DO" & imitating/following an inferior white culture.

This book doesn't just point to subjects & tell you to follow it.
It THOROUGLY explains the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW & WHY of everything.

This book truly opened up my eyes & helped me realize YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.

This book has opened our eyes to what we thought we were doing was healthy. We have changed our diet in many ways and became vegans but still are learning about many things Dr. Africa is talking about. It is a life changing book and could even save your life when you find out the truth.

Afrikan Holistic Health was a great book by Llala Afrika which dealt with the "food" we eat and gave different foods we could eat to prevent sickness as well as giving you cures and remedies. Nutricide deals with the twisted psyche of the duplicitous ones as it relates to food. This book will only appeal to those who open enough to embrace the truth so anglo-blaxons puppets and their pupperteers need not waste their time reading this book because you know you couldnt accept truth to save your lives. My favorite chapter would have to be Chapter 4 titled Craziness. The thing I love about that chapter is that Llala Afrika shows you in so many ways how beserk these people really are. I love the chapter on children because I agree that following their tactics on child-rearing will fail you miserably. I must have read this book from cover to cover at least 4 times and have still found it to be great work. My only gripe with this book is that the index is a terrible disservice to the book and must have been done that way intentionally by the publishing company. The bottom line is this: Llaila Afrika's Nutricide is an excellent follow up to his first book, African Holistic Health. As I said before, this book deals more with their psychosis as it relates to to food. If you loved his first work you will love this book. Favorite chapters: Chapter 2: Health, Chapter 3: Children, Chapter 4: Craziness and Chapter 5: Chemical Madness.

This book was written based on the color theory. Basically, the theory says that each of us has either yellow or pink skin undertone, and thus only fits one of four "color palettes" namely Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Everyone can wear every color but it's the shade and intensity that makes the difference. This book is for colored skin people: Black, Asian, Caucasian, Latin America. Those who want to learn more about the same topic with a focus on white skin people may read "Color Me Beautiful."

In my opinion, the color theory has a good rationale behind it: everybody has her own colors that flatters her skin tone (and body shape too.) For example, my mother hates black and loves brown, rich orange clothes. She always says she feels older in black, but black actually flatters my skin. In terms of the color theory my mom can be an Autumn and I, a Winter. However, I think dividing all people into such 4 categories is an oversimplification. While finding the color type may be easy for some people (white, pinky skin), it doesn't work for me. I'm an Asian with fairly light skin and the skin undertone is between pink and yellow, or peach color. So I don't think I belong to a particular group. However, the book is successful in that it makes me pay attention to the colors and shades that suit me. Gradually, I hope I'll create my own "color palette". Besides, the book has very thorough color pages which I may use as a checklist when I shop for clothes and build my unique colors.

I met Ms. Mathis at a book signing more than 10 years ago, and found her to be a lovely, caring person. She was a disciple of Carole Jackson who expanded the original CMB concept to include various ethnicities. I found the book to be heavy on advice for African-American skintypes rather than Hispanic or Asian women; however, it is was a very useful book for me, because I was a trained CMB consultant at that time, and many of my clients were non-white. If you combine this book with Donna Fujii's "Color With Style", you will have the most complete advice for women of color.

I found this book a great add-on to Carole Jackson's Color Me Beautiful. The photographs are beautiful and the techniques are presented logically. However, I didn't like that she seems to advertise certain clothing designers like Donna Karran/DKNY and Liz Claiborne. Also, she seems to push the idea that in order to be beautiful you need to spend a lot of money on things like manicures & pedicures every 7 days seeing a skin care specialist often. HELLO! Not everyone has a budget for these sort of things! I also didn't like the fact that she seems to think that your season dictates your personality and what fragrance you choose.

This book takes the theory of Seasonal Color to a new level. As a woman of color and a Certified Image Consultant trained in Seasonal Color draping, I very much appreciated the detail and thought given to seasonal color as applied to women of color.

Too often, women of color were tagged with one particular season, with no allowance for the rainbow of skin tones and coloring combinations that we are born with. This book explains not only the different possibilities for coloring, but teaches through gorgeous photography and color charts that women of color can fit into any of the traditional seasons.

Wonderful information is also contained within this book on dressing figure challenges, accessories, and drawing the eye to where you want it. For anyone in the Image Consulting industry who works with women, this book is a great reference. Our world is becoming more multi-cultural every day, and this book will help Consultants work effectively within that world.

One would think that a CMB book about women of color would atleast focus on all women of color. This advice speaks of african american women, Asian women (as in Chinese, Korean, not Pakistani or Indian) and Hispanic women, and if you are from the middle east, the mediteranean, or SriLanka you pretty much have one picture of an east Indian woman, and some white women to look at and assume you must be an autumn. She offers much conflicting advice - that you could look golden but be olive, and there is no way you can color type your skin using this book unless you are very blue black or very golden. The author herself looks warm toned in her picture but says she is winter, and a family picture of a very good looking African American family is even more confusing than ever, because the mother and daughters are all of the same skin tone and undertones, hair and eye color, but are dubbed autumn and springs respectively. Her book is full of written examples of her clients, but without pictures don't make much sense except in selling her skills and her suggestions are way over the top (Top Management should have fur coats as part of their work wardrobe any body?). Honestly, I bought this book from a reseller for 2 bucks and that was a waste for the shoddy advice this book provides. You are much better off reading the core CMB books which includes advice for women of color, but does not claim a focus it does not deliver on. Unless you really liked 80's fashion and wouldn't mind reading antiquated, conflicting advice, I would advice against buying this book.

I saw Lindsey Williams featured in Newsweek and I went immediately and bought this book for a friend of mine. She's been trying to find ways to lighten up her down-home cooking and I thought this was right up her alley.

We paged through the book together and checked out the recipes - which are fantastic. Mr. Williams' personal story was also a highlight, as were tidbits like celebrity favorites. My friend recognized familiar recipes immediately and was pleased her new cookbook.

Naturally, being health conscious, we looked at the nutritional information. That's when we started to get confused.

For one, the calorie and fat counts for some of the desserts were very high. I know - it's DESSERT! If the re-done version was still bad, I figured it must mean the "original" version must have been far worse. And I know you don't eat it all the time, anyway. But I've never seen a "light" cookbook feature a recipe with 4 sticks of butter in the ingredient list. As tempting as the pound cake sounds, I'm afraid it would be something I couldn't eat on my plan.

Secondly, I'm convinced that the nutritional counts are inaccurate. Some recipes had 40 or 50+ grams of fat in them - which is just astronomical for one serving. The calorie count would seem appropriate for a serving, but fat (and sometimes sodium) seemed like it might actually apply to the whole dish. There were so many great LIGHT recipes that we looked at, scanning the ingredient list only to find healthy ingredients but non-attractive nutritional counts. It didn't make sense.

It's such a good cookbook with really great re-mixes of traditional recipes. Even after the confusion, my friend still liked the book. I just wish I could pick Mr. Williams' brain over some of the recipes & techniques.........Why not reduce the amount of high-fat coconut in the coconut cake recipe? Why actually FRY the fried apples when there are other ways to cook them without 3 cups of oil? Do we really have to use 4 sticks of butter in the pound cake or is there a way we can sub out some calories? Why would chicken & peaches have 24g of fat?

Bottom line: the book has some fantastic recipes. I would just recommend for those who are nutritionally aware to do your own calculations (and maybe make a few more of your own substitutions) and I'm sure the numbers won't look so bad.

Other books have been written on soul food but here's something with a difference: it comes from the godson of Harlem's soul food cook Sylvia Woods and adds a healthy twist to a cuisine often associated with unhealthy fats. Author Lindsay Williams struggled with weight all his life and had to make some drastic changes when at 400 pounds he found food affecting his health. NEO SOUL reflects these changes, which caused him to lose more than half his weight, and provides readers with a new brand of healthy soul cooking which retains the ethnicity without the dangers.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

Lyndey Williams is a remarkable person who has come a long way. His journey from unhealthy and obese to fit and eating well is fantastic. His word is just as good as anybodies because he has been "there." I purchased two cookbooks, 1 for me and 1 for my mother. We tried numerous recipes and they turned out great. With these recipes you can substitute the high fat without substituting the great flavor. If you aren't looking for low fat try regular Syvlia's Soul Food in Harlem, hands down some of the greatest soul food available.

Book gives good ideas but nothing new - recylced old ideas - the author gives too much personal information - good for him that he lost weight but enough already ~!

This book was very encouraging. I've eaten in Sylvia's Restaurants in Atlanta and New York and the food was GRRRRREAT!!!!!!! Being a Southerner I know the challenges of resisting good old down home stick to your ribs cooking! I love books like this one and Pattie LaBelle's Lite Cuisine because many of the recipes offer good options for making food that taste good and at the same time is good for you. I think that this book can stimulate the thought processes regarding changing how you prepare the standard recipes you typically eat at home. Most people cook a standard rotation of menus in their homes. Books like this make you think about healthy options and how to substitute ingredients for your meals at home.

I must admit that I read this book in bits and pieces over the course of a year. In retrospect, I would have to say that a lot of that has to do with the layout of ideas in the book. If I had to describe the nature in which it is laid out, I would say that it closely resembles a dissertation and that can make it a bit hard to stay the course in reading. Throughout the text, there were insertions of sources that could have used a footnote instead to help with the flow.

Outside of the layout, I would like to say that the subject was on point with what one can consider a start for self-recovery. I can appreciate the author's personal anecdotes which helped me feel like she does practice what she preaches.

This book does make the mark for being a part of one's personal library collection. Take the first to step to Self-Recovery by purchasing and reading this book.

This book is truly inspiring. It is honest and forthright about the problems of black women the world over. It should be a recommended text for women's studies and certainly for young women today who have never experienced the pain of abuse. I found the experience of reading this book very inspiring, at times painful but always hopeful.

bell hooks makes you think! which is a hard process to do

Sisters & brothers should read this material-there is no color barrier here but provoking thinking material.

I loved this book. I think every African American woman should read this book at least once a year, as an annual celebration of self. hooks is reflective and honest. It is also a good reference for mental health therapists working with African American women.

This is worth buying just for the essay in which Hooks compares two of her male lovers, a good one and a bad one. The distinction between the two is the manner in which they respond to Bell's quirky little habit of initiating sex but then, once having aroused her partner, shutting the guy down and sending him away without his cookie. She does this on a regular basis. Now the bad partner is bad because he used to get out of sorts over this behavior, but the good guy is good because he's all understanding about it. He knows that this is what Bell needs to feel "safe" in a relationship, don't you see.

Don't misunderstand me here: a woman is entitled to press the "disengage" button at any point during a sexual encounter. No means no, ,no matter what the circumstance, etc etc. That's a different issue, however. What we have here is the psychosexual equivalent of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football. No psychologically healthy person of either sex runs trips like this one someone they love, and no psychologically healthy person would put up with it past the second repetition.

Second only to Mary Daly, Hooks is the leading feminist crank of our day.

Ladies, get your credit cards out (or borrow a friend's), get your car to the mall (or catch the bus), buy this book now (do what you must)! I am not even kidding you for one second. This is a beautiful book. This book will make you proud to be (check one): 1. Black 2. An admirer of black beauty 3. Female 4. Male 5. Visually adept. All I got to say is Gary Dourdan, my dear, God Blessed You. God Bless You. All the other fine young specimens and the infinitely talented stylists, editors and photographers, "y'all GO"! (Specifically, GO directly back to the drawing board and do this again...serially,pleeeeeease!) Love... me.

D'Angelo, the cover man, is not to be found inside. The title is much too broad; a more accurate title would be, "Fashion Styles of Some Rich & Famous Black Males." As for bodies, they are mostly clothes hangers here; the amount of skin on the cover is misleading. The contents rate as PG because of a couple behinds and a few covered crotches; there is no full, frontal nudity whatsoever. I don't know how anybody gets any soul out of this book, unless they see it in the eyes of some portraits or glean it from scattered quotes of fashion magazine staffers, usually a phrase or single sentence each, as the quotes, along with some other one-sentence observations by the author, are the only text. Therefore, the cover and title are cheap, bookselling tricks, but the book price is not cheap. A used copy, however, IS cheap, as buyers turn into sellers. Although a book about men of color, I am surprised that black & white plates out-number color 3:1, as I count about 90 b&w and 31 color photo's. I am a fan, too, of some of the people featured, but, to me, this is no reason to gush about the book as a whole. Although I could ooh and ah about some of the photo's, there are a like number of dogs and mediocre shots. What could form a pop-culture chapter itself is the number of celebrities who must have paid a lot for elaborate fantasy scenes shot by highly-paid photographers. I would not feel good about seeing this sort of arrogance if I shelled out a lot for their books, CD's, magazines, ticket prices, etc., the profits of which finance such folly. The author sees Black male fashion from a mainly GQ-type perspective, which may be right in-step in certain parts of Manhattan, but, from here in 'da hood, its seems like he's in an ivory tower. He has a new book coming out, with a similar cover and title, of which I will be suspicious. Except for a few unkwnowns, I expect that everyone involved is highly paid--subjects, photographers, fashion industry, etc.--and I wonder if people paid to be in this book, either in the form of their likeness(es) or their work; it would explain a lot.

Unlike most of the reviewers here, I got to meet some of the guys here either in concert, from the 'hood etc. All left a bad impression on me, so to see them so marvelously pictured here is confusing.

I agree Shannon. Gary Dourdan is SWEET! Someone should do an entire book on him!

Have owned this book over six months but just had to get my twocents in on a review. My purchase was based solely on the frontcover showing the gorgeous black rapper- D'Angelo. Since his MTVvideo titled "Untitled" was one of the hottest & sensual videosever to hit the TV screen, I naturally assumed Mr. Thomas wouldtreat all his purchasers to a D'Angelo collection highlightinghis extremely buffed 'bod. Or maybe he could have given us JamieFoxx instead spoofing D'Angelo on his syndicated weekly program.I salivated alot at the other photos- many too small but in the end it galled me that MY MAIN MAN was really a "no show!"

This book is jam packed with herbal cures and remedies, shows photos/drawings of the herbs in their natural state so you know exactly what to look for. Well written and subject divided and a must for any native American library. Quite an encyclopedia of information.

I've always had the fantasy of becoming an apprentice to a gifted Native American medicine woman--that is until reading "American Indian Healing Arts" by E. Barrie Kavasch and Karen Baar, when my fantasy became a reality. This book is rich with history, accurate herbal information, great medicinal recipes presented in an easy to follow format. "American Indian Healing Arts" is wonderfully reflective of Native American spiritual practices especially in its attention to rites of passage and stages of life. The tender manner with which the information is presented is welcoming, encouraging, inclusive and heartwarming--bound to lead many an apprentice down the path of pursuing greater understanding of Native American medicine.

I found this book to lack depth and explanation. It vaguely lists certain herbs and plants that are of a healing nature, but the true content I was looking for was not here. I wanted more in-depth remedies for particular ailments, where this book applies certain remedies to a very hazy and small range of problems. I was also looking for a guide to ritualistic traditions rather than unmeasurable herbal concoctions.

The Institute for American Indian Studies did not review this book. The attributed review originated with the author.

I found this book exciting to read. It is filled with traditions of Native Americans and gives us recipes for herbs and rituals to try. If you are looking to expand your knowledge of American Indial Healing Arts, this is the book to help you on your way.

I reviewed this book for my gigh school class after hearing all the praise for it. I was fairly shocked by the unrealistic portrayal of diabetics, how the author irresponsibly portrays them as mentally ill. As for the story itself, it is not terrible, but very bland. The writing was another problem, the author felt that she should use a foriegn dialect without insight as to the meaning of what to me were nonsense words.
Overall I would steer clear of this book, especially if your thinking about a lesson with it, I'm not sure these other critics read the same book as I, if they did, I would have to wonder what substance they abused while reading it.

BEYOND THE MANGO TREE is a sparkling debut. Ms. Zemser is a unique and jazzy talent. I'm looking forward to more of her work.

Beyond the Mango Tree was an exciting four star book.It is about an American girl who moves to Liberia,in Africa because her dad is offered a job here.It was exciting because one night thieves came to her house and the guard was hit on the head and almost died and Sarina, the main character, was left alone.This book is also sad because even when Sarina doesn't do anything wrong her mother ties her to a tree and makes her stand in a dark muddy puddle. I have never read anything like this book before and recommend it to readers of all ages.

I thought this was a really fantastic book, the language, the plot and the characters were all very. . . alluring. Sarina's friend Boima supplies a series of dramatic stories throughout the book and Sarina's mother's diabetec probelems are extremely captivating, a must read for anyone who would love to have a change from the everyday world.

This is a wonderful story of friendship which crosses boundaries of class, race and gender. In spite of Sarina's momentary jealousy and suspicion, in the end she learns that love is important and transcends the boundaries her small world.