James McBride

Response to James McBride

Rachel Catena

Nov. 19 2014

After attending the James McBride presentation I started to think about all the things he said.  Although I have not read his book “The Good Lord Bird,” I really appreciated his talk and the things he discussed with us. To start off, I love the way he connected with the audience with his humor and personal stories. Instead of it being a presentation where someone stands in front of a crowd speaking the entire time he engaged his audience by allowing them to ask questions and talked about his personal life. McBride was very humorous and a really good presenter. He grabbed my attention from the start to the end because everything he said I wanted to listen to. He talked about life and one thing that really stood out to me was when he was talking about history. McBride told us, “talk to your grandparents, some of the best stories come from within your own home.” He inspired me to call my grandma because I know both her and my grandpa have amazing stories about how they fell in love and my grandpa had a very interesting life in Poland. I also told my dad that I would like to visit my grandfather because he has a beautiful story of my great-grandma and how she grew her own tomatoes in Italy. McBride really opened my eyes about the people around me and made me excited about the life I have ahead of me. He touched on studying abroad and how it is a truly wonderful experience that we all here at FDU have at our fingertips. Lastly, McBride said he doesn’t own a television set he just likes to read. My roommate, a really avid reader, and I have already agreed to pack up our t.v. and she is going to share some of her favorite books with me. I truly enjoyed his presentation and I am really happy he came to present to us.