Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Week 5: The Skin I'm In

I began reading The Skin I'm In today and could not stop!  This is an extremely easy read, but very intense.  I have read 20 of the 32 chapters and it touches on multiple subjects which young adults deal with.  No, not everyone is made fun of and bullied all of the time but it is very common for teenagers to be teased.  Maleeka is thirteen, in seventh grade and attends an inner city school.  Most of the kids in her school are black, but her skin is even darker than most of theirs.  One of the kids, John-John, who has skin as dark as hers gets jealous for some reason and begins making fun of her.  The joke never stops.  After her fathers dies, her mother tries to save money by sewing Maleeka's clothes for her; this also causes her to be the object of ridicule.  To slightly avoid persecution by her peers she becomes friends with the 'cool' girl, but it doesn't help much and she is miserable.  This book would be easy for teens to identify with; they could relate in many ways.  Also, the chapters are short and the print is large.  The book is not very long so it would be good for a student who does not really enjoy reading.  I love it so far though!  I have changed my mind for my project for class on Friday (9/24) though, and I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with this book, but I am definitely using it.



1 comment:

  1. I hope you finished To Kill a Mockingbirdk! I couldn't tell if you had or not. I am interested in your new book, and like how you are looking at all of your books as a teacher, determining how helpful they would be in your classroom. This latter book sounds great for girls; I'm not sure what I have seen would appeal to boys. It looks like it was either honored or won the Coretta Scott Kind Award. Typically those books are pretty good and well written. Great reading and great blogging!

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