A coming-of-age memoir by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who survived a tyrannical upbringing by her adoptive parents describes the fiercely religious belief system of her abusive mother, her determination to acquire an education as a means of escape, and the disadvantages that challenged her survival. 50,000 first printing.

That Mean Old Yesterday: A Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Patton, Stacey

Community & Culture

Atria Books

An astonishing coming-of-age memoir by a young woman who survived the foster care system to become an award-winning journalist On a rainy night in November 1999, a shoeless Stacey Patton, promising student at NYU, approached her adoptive parents' house with a gun in her hand. She wanted to kill them. Or so she thought. No one would ever imagine that the vibrant, smart, and attractive Stacey had a childhood from hell. After all, with God-fearing, house-proud, and hardworking adoptive parents, she appeared to beat the odds. But her mother was tyrannical, and her father turned a blind eye to the years of abuse his wife heaped on their love-starved little girl. Now in her beautiful memoir, Stacey links her experience to the legacy of American slavery and successfully frames her understanding of why her good adoptive parents did terrible things to her by realizing they had terrible things done to them.

Atria

A challenge to the cultural tradition of corporal punishment in Black homes and its connections to racial violence in America Why do so many African Americans have such a special attachment to whupping children? Studies show that nearly 80 percent of black parents see spanking, popping, pinching, and beating as reasonable, effective ways to teach respect and to protect black children from the streets, incarceration, encounters with racism, or worse. However, the consequences of this widely accepted approach to child-rearing are far-reaching and seldom discussed. Dr. Stacey Patton’s extensive research suggests that corporal punishment is a crucial factor in explaining why black folks are subject to disproportionately higher rates of school suspensions and expulsions, criminal prosecutions, improper mental health diagnoses, child abuse cases, and foster care placements, which too often funnel abused and traumatized children into the prison system. Weaving together race, religion, history, popular culture, science, policing, psychology, and personal testimonies, Dr. Patton connects what happens at home to what happens in the streets in a way that is thought-provoking, unforgettable, and deeply sobering. Spare the Kids is not just a book. It is part of a growing national movement to provide positive, nonviolent discipline practices to those rearing, teaching, and caring for children of color.

Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America

Teen & Young Adult

Beacon Press

Based on the author's real experience, this charming and hilarious picture book follows a solitary homeowner who insists she's much too busy to adopt a stray cat...until the cat adopts her. Staceypants lives in a beautiful yellow house in Charm City where she stays busy fixing things, planting pretty flowers, and keeping her home clean. One day, she finds a scruffy gray cat perched on her fence. But Staceypants definitely does not want a cat. Cats scratch furniture, jump on everything, and they need a litter box! No, this is not Staceypants's cat. Not when the cat comes back again and again. Not when Staceypants buys the cat a fancy cat bed. Not even when she and the cat sunbathe and do porch yoga together. But what will she do when the cat that's not her cat disappears?

Not My Cat

Children's Books

Animals

Denene Millner Books/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

That Mean Old Yesterday : An Abused Girl's Fight for Survival by Patton, Stacey (2008) Paperback

Simon Schuster(uk)

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Books by Patton, Stacey