A Place to Belong

Celebrating Diversity and Kinship in the Home and Beyond

By: Amber O'Neal Johnston, Julie Bogart - foreword

Narrated by: Amber O'Neal Johnston

Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

A guide for families of all backgrounds to celebrate cultural heritage and embrace inclusivity in the home and beyond.

Gone are the days when socially conscious parents felt comfortable teaching their children to merely tolerate others. Instead, they are looking for a way to authentically embrace the fullness of their diverse communities. A Place to Belong offers a path forward for families to honor their cultural heritage and champion diversity in the context of daily family life by:

• Fostering open dialogue around discrimination, race, gender, disability, and class
• Teaching “hard history” in an age-appropriate way
• Curating a diverse selection of books and media choices in which children see themselves and people who are different
• Celebrating cultural heritage through art, music, and poetry
• Modeling activism and engaging in community service projects as a family

Amber O’Neal Johnston, a homeschooling mother of four, shows parents of all backgrounds how to create a home environment where children feel secure in their own personhood and culture, enabling them to better understand and appreciate people who are racially and culturally different. A Place to Belong gives parents the tools to empower children to embrace their unique identities while feeling beautifully tethered to their global community.

This audiobook contains a downloadable PDF of the family discussion guides from the book.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Amber O'Neal Johnston and Julie Bogart (P)2022 Penguin Audio

A Total Gem

This book is a complete gem, choked full of hard truths, manageable tips for change, and life giving inspo. It is about building a diverse and inclusive home through action, not lip service.

A lot of ideas the author presented made me feel uncomfortable- but the good sort of uncomfortable. The “I’ve gotten too comfortable with patting myself on the back for my work and concern. It’s time to get uncomfortable again.”

Our family has already implemented some of the ideas in the book and I’m writing more into our curriculum for the upcoming year.

As a bonus, I love listening to books read by the author - there is a special connection for the listener. Amber O’Neal Johnston leapt from my Air Buds to my heart!

Read half, Listened to Half

My wife, a homeschool mom, has been following the work of Amber Johnson for a few years now. Amber has produced resources that have helped so many homeschool educators add diversity to their kids’ curriculum. “A Place To Belong” represents a compilation of these resources and more. My wife asked me to read the book, so I read half and then listened to the other half on Audible. Hearing the author read her own work helped me to connect with her passion for the subject.
I found the content of the book to be very helpful, but also fascinating. Amber not only explains the reasons for including diverse voices in the curriculum, but she also weaves her family’s personal story into the book. I could relate to her story being that I am also an African-American. What was particularly good about the book was its inclusion of practical suggestions and specific names of people, resources, and experiences that could be used to enhance learning. I found myself on many a rabbit trail googling and searching through YouTube for the recommendations made in the book.
As a dad who wants his kids to learn from and value and enjoy the richness of other cultures, I think this book is a useful tool. My hope is that homeschool, public school, and private school teachers alike will use it and steer their students in a healthy direction as it relates to diversity and inclusion.

Wonderful Read?

This book helped me see through other's eyes. I was able to see their point of view and did not feel attacked. This book is Highly recommended and I will suggest it to many people in the future. Thank you!

An Excellent Read For Families of All Backgrounds

This is a beautiful, encouraging, inspiring, thought-provoking book. It is for anyone desiring to create a culture of belonging and invlusivity within their own family and community. This book is not geared toward any one group of people - all types of families can benefit from Amber's thoughtful, gracious, and passionate wisdom. The book is broken into sections that cover practical areas in our life that can we can work on to foster belonging and inclusivity. This book feels like listening to a friend and you can sense Amber's heart in what she shares.

Very practical!

This book is so timely and Amber is an excellent story teller. My husband and I both listened to this and I truly felt like she was speaking to our exact parenting struggles right now. We were raised to be “color blind” and want to raise our children differently. I appreciated the examples for answering the tough questions. And it was really great to not feel “preached” to. This was not a religious or faith based approach and was a very inclusive book. Thanks for writing this Amber!

She gets it

1. The author reads this so beautifully, you feel like you know her by the end.

2, This is a must read for ALL parents.

3. Coming from a multi-racial family, living in a predominantly white area, I this is the book that has given me guidance and the feeling of support in this struggle of navigating my feelings that I didn’t know could even exist.

4. this book is for people who are or want to be open minded about racial needs for yourself or maybe others you want to support in your community.

5.I hope to get a signed copy one day because I need to own the physical book as well.

life changing

I was in tears within the first Chapter! Amber spoke directly to the spaces, positions, and pull of discontent I find myself in as a BIPOC momma trying to navigate the world of socializing and education and mental and cultural growth for my children. She phrased feelings I've had and couldn't quite put words too; while also giving concrete ideas and guidance on how to create change starting within your own home. I've recommended this book to both my BIPOC AND non BIPOC friends over and over again. Hope to start some momma book clubs in the new spaces we enter into and the ones we create ourselves. I'd give it 10/5 if I could!

Beautifully written and narrated must read

This is a beautifully written and inspiring book. I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook which was expertly narrated by the author. This book is jam packed with so much helpful information from how to have difficult conversations with your children to how to create culturally rich learning experiences for your children regardless of your cultural background. I really enjoyed the suggestions regarding how you can share your family culture and history with your children. This book contains great information about Worldschooling and how you can travel the world and continue to teach your children as well as how you can do this from home if your lifestyle doesn’t allow travel. I mean she even opens up and talks numbers on how to be able to budget a worldschooling adventure. This book talks about how you can curate a home library of books that serve as both mirrors reflecting self and windows to see our into the world. I must say that as I reached this end of this beautiful book after over 10 hours of listening I was quite sad that it had come to an end. I highly recommend this book to all parents that wish to provide a lifestyle for their children that honors their heritage while remaining inclusive of others.

Infinitely valuable for adoptive mom

I have been looking for THIS book! I discovered Amber O'Neal Johnston while listening to one of my favorite podcasts and I was instantly in awe of her work. This book takes a very in-depth dive into diversity (particularly African American racial mirrors) in the home setting, which I appreciated as both an adoptive mom and a homeschooling mom. It is so informational and encouraging. This book is for everyone and I would highly recommend it for anyone providing care for a child in their life. I listened to the audio book version first and love that she read it herself because you could really hear the delivery exactly as she intended. So excellent.

possibly my favorite homeschool book so far

Anyone looking to examine the cultural exposure, competence, and inclusivity of their homes could benefit from this book. Whether a person of color or minority in some way looking for information on how to (or why to) provide mirrors for yourself and family, or a person in majority race or privileged position, this book is page after page of gems that go beyond and deeper than "broaden your circle" advice. I found myself nodding in approval at times and furrowed my brow in confusion at others as I leaned in to understand the authors point of view as it clearly challenged my own automatic way of thinking.
As a new-ish honeschooler, I have found myself frustrated with books that offer "you can do it" platitudes with little advice on HOW to implement and act. This book is the opposite, but with a nice dose of "you can do it" included. And even more important than the encouragement or the "how to" was the WHY. I have this as an audiobook and will be purchasing the printed copy as well just to be able to make notes and highlight.