Training Black Spirit

There's so much that shapes a person's character through his or her adolescence. In many cases, African American teenagers are left in need of more positive influences and the right role models to lead them through their formative years. Training Black Spirit: Ethics for African American Teens is a guide by Dr. William L. Conwill designed to lend young people a constructive hand as their characters develop. This is a handbook full of life principles. It features a distinctive, purposeful layout, utilizing Adinkra symbols to further illustrate the principles the author presents. It's not a book loaded with rigid mandates, meant to dictate to teenagers about their behavior. Instead, the author tactfully takes a more abstract route. He touches on a number of ideas, including voluntarism, the meaning of toughness, and the origin of cruelty. The author provides an uncomplicated basis of ethics, giving readers ample room to reflect, to reason, and to determine what those ethics mean to them individually. However, even with this abstract approach, the author doesn't merely give the reader a list of attractive ideals with no real-world place for those ideals to land. The book incorporates nuggets of African American history and admirable historical figures. This gives teenagers actual examples of people who've put positive principles into action. What's more, the author includes a short Suggested Activity with each principle, but not as a strict or narrow how-to. Each Activity is an idea to help teenagers become accustomed to applying principles to their lives in practical ways. Again, the heart of the book is uncomplicated and appropriate for a teenaged audience. However, it's not clear which audience all of the introductory sections of the book are meant to address. It seems that much of the opening information is on a level most appropriate for adults who'll be helping young people work through the handbook. Yet, the author addresses teenagers in one part of the opening and then goes back to speaking to adults. If a teenager starts the book at the beginning, but the information there goes over his head, he'll likely skip the rest of the introduction and miss the details there that are meant for him. There's also material under one principle that seems to be aimed at parents more so than their adolescent children. The book has some minor errors as well: the same list appears in two neighboring paragraphs in the introduction; there are a couple of misspelled words accompanying Adinkra symbols; and the same Suggested Activity appears in two different sections, which doesn't seem intentional. However, the errors are few, and the book has a polished and professional look overall. This handbook is an inspiring guide, simply outlined so that teenagers can grasp, reflect on, and productively apply the information. Therefore, I give Training Black Spirit a rating of 4 out of 4 stars. I'd certainly recommend this book to parents, mentors, and the African American teenagers they support.--Nadine Times Online Book Club.Org