Jason Schachter McK­in­ney is a well-known singer and can­tor. This pic­ture book biog­ra­phy details his jour­ney from being a young, Black Jew who was­n’t sure where he belonged all the way to the suc­cess­ful career he enjoys today.

Young Jason, the son of an Ashke­nazi Jew­ish moth­er and an African-Amer­i­can father who loved Judaism, went to Jew­ish day school, where he was taught Hebrew, Torah, and Jew­ish his­to­ry. Music was also always an inte­gral part of his life. Some of his school­mates had­n’t encoun­tered any­one of his back­ground before. How could he pos­si­bly be both Jew­ish and Black, they won­dered; they had trou­ble believ­ing any­thing beyond their usu­al spheres of com­fort. The whis­pers made Jason feel alien and unac­cept­ed. As a result, he stopped attend­ing Jew­ish day school and synagogue. 

Instead, he focused on his prodi­gious musi­cal tal­ents, singing and per­form­ing on instru­ments. He explored Black spir­i­tu­als but nev­er felt tru­ly at ease in a church. Even­tu­al­ly, he reached world­wide pro­fes­sion­al heights as an admired and respect­ed per­former. Then, he unex­pect­ed­ly passed a syn­a­gogue in Bel­gium and heard the con­gre­ga­tion singing. That was when he real­ized that this was where he tru­ly belonged. He knew that all the parts of his her­itage were sig­nif­i­cant and were part of what made him the indi­vid­ual he became, but study­ing to be a can­tor and lead­ing oth­er Jews in prayer rein­forced who he real­ly was. He con­tin­ued to per­form all kinds of music on stage and feels to this day that all the parts of him­self com­bine to add val­ue to his life. He learned that where he real­ly belonged was — everywhere.

The illus­tra­tions evoke place and his­to­ry, and are filled with detail and col­or. The sto­ry will res­onate with the many chil­dren who are not quite secure in their own iden­ti­ties and will teach them that it is pos­si­ble to inte­grate all parts of one­self into an inter­est­ing and pre­cious whole. It is espe­cial­ly nice to find a pic­ture book biog­ra­phy of a fas­ci­nat­ing, tal­ent­ed per­son who may be unfa­mil­iar to read­ers and whose life can open up new worlds.