"This mother’s striking and generous admonition to thrive even in the face of white mendacity also is a meditation on parenting. Reflective insights about injustice adjoin a few visceral apologies about every responsible parent’s regrets, which might remind parents of the divide between ‘the deed of giving life’ and ‘the social consequence of the deed.’ For Black boys and their parents who struggle to get childhood and mothering-along or fathering-along correct: ‘Just always remember: even if you tumble...you must move towards freedom.’” (Booklist, starred review)

“There are moments when a piece of writing is so honest, so personal, that it crawls into us....Breathe is that. Perry gives us a look into what it means to love her children - her Black sons - in a world that may not. What it means to arm them with information, history, culture, spirit, pride, and joy. What it means to celebrate with them the vastness of their lineage and the tight network of community, which affords them an impenetrable freedom to be. To just...be. And as Perry gives this to her sons - her family - with such candor and respect, I couldn’t help but hear my own mother speaking her truth, our truth, to me.” (Jason Reynolds, author of the Track series: Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu) 

“Breathe is a masterpiece. With an approach that is at once vulnerable and brave, scholarly and artistic, critical and hopeful, Imani Perry has written the book that we desperately need. Breathe arms us with the wisdom, courage, and hope necessary to parent Black children within a White supremacist world. Breathe not only demonstrates Perry’s deep love of her sons but also her profound and abiding faith in the rich traditions, ambitious freedom dreams, and boundless possibilities of Black people. This is an offering of profound beauty and brilliance that marks Imani Perry’s emergence as the leading writer and thinker of this generation.” (Marc Lamont Hill)