Book Feature Autumn 2020 - Channel Kindness: Stories of Kindness and Community

 

Stories from Channel Kindness Reporters with Lady Gaga

Book Review – Channel Kindness: Stories of Kindness and Community

Background

For over a decade, the award winning composer and performer, Lady Gaga has been a best seller of popular music. She has also been a trailblazer in fashion and performance art, and uses her celebrity status to highlight important issues. In 2012, led by she and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta the not-for-profit organisation Born This Way Foundation was founded.

This book is a convenant of the foundation's work to support the wellness of young adults, the changemaker individuals, who have broken free of stigma behaviour, and/or have prevailed in some personal way. These young people have enlisted and have trained to become Channel Kindness Reporters, through the foundation, with a view to helping others by being kind, empathic and compassionate in their actions through community engagement and storytelling. In other words, creating a positive legacy for others to find comfort from and to build upon.

This is a non-fictional book for young adults.
Content Warning topics covered include personal experiences of sexual assault, as well as potentially influencing ideations i.e. suicide

Book Review

51 stories which include accounts of bullying, living with anxiety; living with a disability for example. Some tell of being prejudiced against, of being harrassed (in many forms). Accounts of bereavement, of mental health breakdown; of self harming; of being a victim of sexual crimes, various cruelties and other awful social injustices.

Within these 51 stories the reader learns how young people have overcome their problems and adversities. Some have made philanthropic and carthartic gestures. Others have been enterprising within their communities. Some are addressing the bigger picture i.e. climate change from their own geographical settings. Stories of self help activities being utilised for the renewed health of both body and mind. Acts of resilience are revealed by those who have stood up against their persecutors; bullies or body shamers. Those who are all inclusive and have taken their Gay Pride messages to heart and have marched through the streets with it. Others have channeled community education and social events by using various artforms, and devising creative projects to achieve wider benefits. Some young people have simply learned to be kind to themselves and comfortable in their own skin.

Postive Comment

It's a positive book, draws on the 'a problem shared is a problem halved' principle. Reviewer feels for that reason it will be of comfort for any young person feeling saddened, haunted, alone or weighed down by something that has or is causing them upset or concern. Albeit in uneasy ways, a youngster will be encouraged by reading these first-hand accounts and how the contributors have, seemingly, been able to overcome things that have challenged them in life by outwardly channeling kindness.

Lady Gaga contributes in the form of an introduction about her own problems and past insecurities. She is encouraging and champions the youngsters in the little footnotes she makes. Her warm messages are dispersed throughout in little aside snippets. Her voice is significant all the way through, this will result in higher sales of the book and in highlighting the activities associated with the foundation.

Negative Comment

The book has an eye catching cover, though, in an effort to be trendy for its young audience, the design layout is not great. The main font used in the text is a little small and undefined in the places when set upon deep, bold colour backgrounds. Many of the photographic illustrations are pre-existing images aquired from various sources and so they vary in quality. It may not be the case, but the book definitely has that kind of presentation synonymous to being borne out of a Design and Print company having money thrown their way to jump through hoops to come up with the goods, yet, unfortunately, it lacks a certain kind of publishing sophistication.

Conclusion

It is true to say that any time people suffer, or animals and nature suffers because of human behaviour; kindness is always absent. 

A well-timed publication in this year of the Covid-19 pandemic 2020, when the #bekind message is resonating more and more

Review by Debra Hall (UK)