Blended
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A girl grapples with her self-image while caught between her parents and their new families in this “timely and genuine” (Publishers Weekly) story about divorce and racial identity from the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Out of My Mind, Sharon M. Draper.
Eleven-year-old Isabella’s parents are divorced, so she has to switch lives every week: One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son Darren living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighborhood. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and her boyfriend John-Mark in a small, not-so-fancy house that she loves.
Because of this, Isabella has always felt pulled between two worlds. And now that her parents are divorced, it seems their fights are even worse, and they’re always about her. Isabella feels more stuck in the middle than ever. And she is beginning to realize that being split between Mom and Dad involves more than switching houses, switching nicknames, switching backpacks: it’s also about switching identities. Her dad is black, her mom is white, and strangers are always commenting on her looks—calling her exotic and unusual. She knows they’re really saying she doesn’t look like her parents and are wondering about her race.
And when her parents, who get engaged at the same time, get in their biggest fight ever, Isabella doesn’t just feel divided, she feels ripped in two. What does it mean to be half white or half black? To half-belong to mom and half to dad? And if you’re only seen as half of this and half of that, how can you ever feel whole?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Timely and genuine, this novel chronicles a biracial girl's struggle to define her identity and find her voice amid personal and societal expectations. After her parents' divorce, competitive pianist Isabella, 11, divides her time between her white diner-waitress mother and her wealthy black father. The constant back and forth and her family's tense weekly exchanges cause her intense stress, as do the microaggressions Isabella experiences regularly. When a history class discussion about student protests and the history of lynching ends with a noose being placed in a black classmate's locker, Isabella's awareness of racist behavior skyrockets, as does her need to define who she is for herself. Draper (Out of My Mind) doesn't shy away from challenging or uncomfortable topics; police aggression, gun violence, the complicated nature of divorce, and socioeconomic imbalances are all candidly addressed as real and important parts of Isabella's experience. Readers will identify with Isabella's journey to stand up for herself, especially to her parents, whose constant arguing and clear dislike for each other often overshadow her needs: "Chocolate family meets vanilla family in the artificial reality that is a mall," Isabella says. "Caramel daughter caught helplessly between the two." Ages 8 12.
