Friday, February 11, 2011

I Beat the Odds by Michael Oher

From Doret's interview with Michael Oher:

1. Many people read Michael Lewis's book The Blind Side, in which your story was depicted. Even more saw the movie. When I first heard about I Beat the Odds, I was very excited you were telling your story since Hollywood tends to distort everything.

When did you decide to write I Beat the Odds?


As the movie took off, I started to get a huge flood of mail from people wanting to know what I thought of it and if my life was really the way it looked on screen. I also started getting letters from kids in foster care or from families who had taken in troubled kids, and they all thanked me for being a voice for them. That really made me start to realize the need for someone to step up and speak out about the reality of life for too many kids in America. It seemed to me that maybe God was giving me the opportunity to help people by sharing not just my perspective on the story, but also to try to become the kind of role model I wish I’d had when I was growing up.

2 This is a very personal look at your early years in Memphis and growing up in foster care system. What gave you the strength to remember?

I had gotten as far as I did by trying not to remember – by putting everything behind me and not dwelling on the past. Sometimes, it’s scary to think about looking back because you’re afraid that you might get pulled back into the world you’ve fought so hard to try to escape. But if I was going to write a book about my story, it needed to be as honest as possible. I wasn’t doing this for me; I was doing it for all the other kids out there who were like me, and I wanted to give them something real.

There is also mention of poetry, Cinderella and Don Yaeger. Check it out and get a glimpse of who Oher is, in his own words.