April 24, 2013

Book Review #4

The Skin I’m In

“You’re ugly! You’re not pretty enough to hang out with this group! You dress funny! I hate you!” These are things that we see and hear in schools and society every day. Children and adults being picked on by people who hate them and want to make fun of them. We think when we are being bullied or made fun of by people is because they don’t like me but really they are just jealous or envy you and don’t want that person to know and instead put them down. All human beings are not the same we come in all different shapes and sizes and even color too. God created us to be this way so we are all not the same. We should never judge people buy how they look and what they wear but in this world we live in it happens every day.

Everyday someone’s child is being bullied in school or an adult is being critized at work or just out in public by some stranger they don’t even know. These things happen but needs to be stopped and everyone needs to learn to love one another and stop hating each other. I believe it starts in the home with children being bullied by older sibling’s every day and that child think it’s what everyone does to people so they go to school thinking it is okay to be mean to others but it’s not. Parents should put an end to that before things get out of hand and get carried away and brought to school. Children hate being called mean names and pushed around like dirt. They feel like they are not just being picked on by the bully who’s messing with them but by the whole entire school. They start to feel isolated and secluded from everyone fell like maybe they are not pretty and look good every day. As adults we need to start teaching children the right from wrong and help them get to appreciate each other.

The book I read was called “The Skin I’m In” by Sharon G. Flake. The story is about a young seven grader name Maleeka Madison who is the protagonist in the story. Maleeka is a little girl who gets bullied and picked on about the color of her skin, her hair, her clothes, just being Maleeka. Maleeka’s father died and so it only her and her mother who doesn’t play with Maleeka at all. Ever since her father past, Maleeka’s mother has to make ends meet so she sews Maleeka’s clothes and they are always never done right. The setting mostly takes place at the school, McClenton Middle School, which is for students who come from low income families. Its day first day of school and she has a new English teacher name Miss Saunders. Miss Saunders dresses very nice and always has on designer clothes but there is something wrong with Miss Saunders that everyone notices. Her face is totally messed up on one side but that doesn’t stop her from being who she is.

Maleeka hangs out with Charlese Jones, who is the most popular girl in school and who is also the oldest seventh grader in the class because she had been kept back two times already. Maleeka also borrows Charles’s clothes every day because she hates wearing the outfits her mom makes for her. The twins Raise and Raina also are with Maleeka and Charlese who just follow every move Charlese makes. Charlese and the twins really don’t like Maleeka but they only tolerate her because she’s smart and Maleeka is scared of Charlese and does all her homework for her. She doesn’t know how to tell Charlese to do her own work because she is afraid of what she might do to her. Then there’s John McIntyre who picks on Maleeka all the time and calls her “black and ugly” all the time. Caleb Jammaal Assam is one of the smartest boys in school. He likes Maleeka a lot but is afraid of his reputation being seeing with Maleeka at school.

Throughout the story Miss Saunders sees that Maleeka is a really smart student but she doesn’t understand why Maleeka hangs out with Charlese and the twins who just boss her around. One day Maleeka and the girls are in the restroom talking and smoking they get busted by Miss Saunders who