This is a heartwarming story of a black and brilliant young girl finding her voice and learning to love herself. Maleeka Madison is our narrator with a big imagination and feisty attitude, but struggles to embrace the very thing that makes her magic- her blackness. After reading this book, it calls to mind a theme widespread in our society for the young and the old; bullying. More specifically, intra-racial bullying. Codifying levels of appropriate blackness, and ridiculing those who don’t fit the norm. Are you black enough? Too black? Identity, peer pressure, self-esteem, self-image, etc. The Skin I’m In is ripe with it all. It is a topic worthy of discussion among adolescents, and I’m happy this book can act as a conversational vehicle in the middle school classroom.
McClenton Middle is described as an inner-city school, part of an urban neighborhood with kids the same race as Maleeka. The token Mean Girls in the book (Raise, Raina, and the ringleader Char) exert control over Maleeka under the guise of pseudo-social confirmation, regularly belittling her, manipulating her, and dressing her in Char’s hand-me-downs. John-John, another classmate and clear case of envy and unrequited love, retaliates with gags about her dark skin. Maleeka’s self-love deteriorated over time following the death of her father and the uptick in juvenile intimidation. The end of the father-daughter relationship, one of the most impactful for any young girl, is key. It is the biggest influence to self-esteem, confidence, and self-image for a girl, qualities our narrator struggles with. Her mother grieves in her own special way, and resigns herself to transitory habits including sewing the irregular clothes Maleeka reluctantly wears to school.
Enter Miss Saunders- a new teacher Maleeka’s initially rejects because she’s chic, bold, and unbothered. Disregard the noticeable blemish across Miss Saunders’ face, although Maleeka equates her dark skin to her new teacher’s imperfection (Maleeka declares she’s a “freak like me”, Miss Saunders doesn’t allow it to handicap her). “It takes a long time to accept yourself,” says Miss Saunders to Maleeka, a statement I feel the need to mention about self-acceptance. Maleeka has adolescent wants (social acceptance, nice threads) and as the novel closes, tangible adolescent needs are manifested (trust in others, speaking up, defending yourself, loving yourself). The good girl triumphs, and damaging influences fade.
African-American and/or Latinx
8/31/17
Drama
9/9/17
Nonfiction
9/20/17
"Problem" Novel
completed 9/24/17
"Other World" Novel(s)
revisited
completed 10/05/17
In her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America, Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the poor working class Americans in the wake of the 1996 welfare reform act. To do this she puts herself through the paces of these individuals by finding a low-level job and then struggling to survive. The book itself garnered a lot of criticism and controversy, and is a top-ten frequently challenged book across school districts in the nation. Despite the drama, it is still an interesting nonfiction story. Taking place in Minnesota, she experiences the life of a Wal-Mart employee making $7/hour, while also struggling with everyday living expenses. She states that low-wage jobs do not pay enough not to support one person or a family, especially when you factor in inflating housing prices and lower wages with no potential of getting any higher. Many of the workers she encounters survive off the good graces of others- finding childcare services, living with relatives, using someone else’s car to get to work, etc. Creative ways forced upon them by their unforgiving predicament.
Ehrenreich dismisses the notion that low-wage jobs require only unskilled labor, finding that many of them required incredible feats of stamina, focus, and fast learning. She finally concludes that low-wage workers are not the only ones living off the generosity of others, but that we also live off of their generosity. “The "working poor" are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure hardship so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. “To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone,” she writes. Ehrenreich sheds light on the dark underbelly of a capitalist society, and despite the drug use, language, liberal leanings, and perceived “anti-Christian” ideologies deemed inappropriate by conservative challengers, this book sparks meaningful classroom dialogue about the social implications of private enterprise. Along with young adult fiction, nonfiction welcomes a reflection on past events and asks questions about how one can change the present and prepare for the future. Keeping an open mind is crucial for an evaluative critique of yourself and the world. This nonfiction read fits the bill, and I'd enjoy introducing it (or excerpts) within a curriculum. The truth is ugly, but ignorance of it is perilous.
These are two high school reads I felt compelled to revisit, and draw parallels. I read Brave New World senior year and The Giver as a freshman, and living in today's problematic society I wanted to discuss the intrinsic motivations and #YALit connections of the main characters in each book. Jonah, from The Giver, and Bernard Marx in Brave New World serve to encapsulate some of the most important of differences in the motivations of the characters themselves, as well as their underlying connection to readers, especially younger readers. The character of Jonah is one who believes in thinking his way through problems, which is one of several reasons for why he was chosen to be the Receiver of Memory. Jonah is also extremely empathetic, a character trait that also gets him into trouble on more than one occasion. The training he undergoes only exacerbates these character traits of him, and his motivations become even stronger as he sees how much cruelty and injustice is truly in the world around him, prompting him to resolve that much more to put an end to it. Jonah's connection to readers, then, seems to focus primarily on the change that he undergoes, which shares some parallels with the concept of puberty as well as change in general. Bernard Marx takes what one could consider to be an inverse character arc when compared to Jonah. Indeed, Bernard starts the book as intelligent and with a strong amount of willpower, motivated to rebel against a system that he believed to be unjust and unfair, and wanting an in-depth relationship with Lenina. Marx soon becomes obsessed with flouting his own accomplishments, no doubt a consequence of his mental conditioning. This demonstrates that Marx prefers more to be socially successful, than finding any sort of intrinsic motivation or goal, which possibly reflects the emphasis on social achievements that are more common among young adults.
Motherhood, spirituality, and race relations are just a few of the prominent themes weaved into Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees. A young girl's quest to demystify the life of her deceased mother; three educated and enterprising black women in the South during the 60s; a beekeeping motif used to personify an interconnected society. Kidd's poetic language makes the novel a superb read and communicates the merit of a strong motherly bond, whether it be traditional or non. The story follows the journey of 14-year-old Lily Owens, seeking to uncover the mystery of her late mother. Set in South Carolina during the summer of 1964 following the passing of civil rights legislation, Lily lives with her emotionally abusive father, T-Ray, and cared for by her African-American nanny, Rosaleen. Circumstance compels Lily to flee her childhood home and hostile father and head for Tiburon, SC, a town etched on the back of a Black Mary photo belonging to her mother. With Rosaleen in tow, they discover a honey farm run by the Boatwright family, three African-American sisters who open their home and hearts to the pair. It is here where Lily learns of her mother, the art of beekeeping, spirituality, and the inspiring power of women working together. The sisters, along with the Daughters of Mary, are unconventional stewards of motherly love and help Lily grow spiritually. Beekeeping is how August, the eldest Boatwright sister, teaches Lily restraint and bee interdependence among the workers and the queen (reference to humankind). Young readers can enjoy this coming of age story, and connect with Lily's journaling, heroism, and bright imagination. They'll be fascinated with Kidd's writing, and willing to engage in a dialogue of prejudice, politics, and other progressive/regressive topics relevant in today's society.
What would my high school had been like if I were a teenager today. More specifically, how would classroom dialogue and conversations with friends/fellow classmates sound if the present effects of police brutality, racial profiling, and white privilege were discussed at length. The residual ideologies and actions following slavery, Civil Rights, and the Jim Crow era. How do today’s students cope when they hear someone their age or race unjustly killed or brutalized at the hands of the police? How are students having a safe, productive discussion about racial profiling and white privilege among peers, and not just adults?
All-American Boys is phenomenal, and interconnected beautifully (Quinn and Rashad, the two authors of the book) with a great display of spot-on teenage lingo, and the POVs of a young white kid and black kid dealing with the aftermath of a horrible, avoidable, and real-life incident. It takes witnessing the beating of a fellow student to open Quinn’s eyes to circumstances he’s unaware of, and wrestles with the decision to defend a family friend or fight against prejudice. It calls to mind a popular short article written by Peggy McIntosh in the late 80s, responsible for thrusting the phrase “white privilege” into mainstream. McIntosh’s analysis of the interconnected ignorance of white, male privilege is pretty sound. She’s highlighting the complexities of bias, and race coupled with gender. Fundamentally this societal currency the majority white class has spent freely for centuries, and may never be acknowledged by the very beneficiaries, the author cast a critical eye on gender disparities but also makes an interesting self-assessment; McIntosh “works to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some their power” and asking “what will I do to lessen or end” her own white privilege. She recognizes her own inexperience with unfair advantages and how her own surroundings helped contribute to her “oblivious conditioning”, and includes a list of things she’s been able to do/accomplish. This is inarguably the BEST PART. Let's disregard the the gender disparity angle while discussing this novel. Acknowledgement of his "privilege" helps Quinn begin to unravel and self-assess, makes the uncomfortable and necessary choice to speak up. This is a book is of significant, social importance to encourage talk among students about things happening in their world, at this present time. All-American Boys even includes reading discussion topics at the end!
​
SN- My favorite part is in the end, when Quinn ignores the "play it safe" warnings from his basketball coach, mother, and one of his best friends. He decides to protest in honor of a student he’s never met, and make a stand for the movement. The fact these two characters never see each other until the end is powerful- when their eyes meet at the die-in, they're "clear" and "focused", "an arm's length away". One of his standout thoughts- “I wondered if anybody thought what we were doing was unpatriotic. It was weird. Thinking that to protest was somehow un-American. That was bullshit. This was very American, goddamn All-American.” A fact too many of today's American leaders and citizens are forgetting.