This Side of Home

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This Side of Home Cover Book

This Side of Home is written by one of the New York Times bestselling authors, Renee Watson, and published on February 3, 2015. This book is directed for teens (13-17 yo) that talks about sisters, friends, and what it means to embrace change. [1]

Plot

Identical twins Nikki and Maya have always been together for everything and starting their grown-up lives at a historically African-American college. But as their neighborhood starting to change and becoming more modern, filled in new coffee shops and boutiques, Nikki feels excited while Maya feels like their house is starting to fade away. Suddenly, the sisters who had always shared everything should defy their contradicting emotions on the significance of their ethnic and social personalities and, all the while, figure out how to isolate themselves from the long shadow of their way of life as twins. [2]

Controversy

This novel is set in present-day Portland and centers on identical African American twins Nikki and Maya, as well as their best friend Essence. Together they are caught up in their neighborhood’s change from sketchy to up-and-coming. Because of this change, many of the residents of this formerly all-black community are constrained out by over the top leases and supplanted by well off white families and a large number of of high-end boutiques and restaurants. [3] Institutionalized racism also causes distress to the girls' lives. The students at the girls' high school do not get new books like kids at more privileged schools, and the twins' mom drives them to the opposite part of town because the parks are better there. The book shares that, Maya is by and large continually characterized by her race wears. At the point when she is in a store, she is approached to check her assets while white clients calmly shop with a lot bigger sacks. There are some parts where Maya and her friends are convinced that youth of color need to be portrayed in a more positive light. She becomes newly elected the student council president but is shocked to find that it is merely a figurehead position while the school principal pulls the strings. Principals bans a Black History Month celebration—against the student council's advice—and replace it with a diversity luncheon. [4]

References

  1. This Side of Home. Amazon. Retrieved January 28 2021.
  2. This Side of Home. Goodreads. Retrieved January 27 2021.
  3. Clare, Runnymede. THIS SIDE OF HOME Reviewed. TPL Teens. 6 September 2015. Retrieved January 28 2021.
  4. McDermott, Miranda.Booktalking: "This Side of Home" by Renee Watson. New York Public Library. 18 January 2018. Retrieved January 27 2021.