![]() ![]() ![]() Unfortunately, neither the cover nor the title will draw kids in the book will need introduction and perhaps booktalking.?Claudia Morrow, Berkeley Public Library, CA. ![]() The author effectively alternates excerpts from his notebooks?the thoughts intended for his own eyes only?with first-person descriptions of the action. Once thought "slow" in school because of his reticence, he is in fact a well-read, gifted young man with a talent for writing. Woodson has made Melanin an affecting and memorable, even admirable, character. He comes around because of who he is, not because it's the "right" thing to do. Nonetheless, at the end, Melanin seems to have sorted out his feelings?slowly, believably?and recognized in his mother and her lover a vulnerability he feels himself for other reasons. ![]() His reaction is negative, strong, and hurtful. His mother, a law student who sometimes acts more like a best friend, tells him she's in love with a woman?a white one, at that. What follows is not the usual identity crisis, however. "Difference matters," he writes early on. But sometimes its hard to speak his mind, so he fills up notebooks with his thoughts instead. Named for his dark skin, he knows about being on the outside of things. Fourteen-year-old Melanin Sun has a lot to say?not out loud, but in notebooks he keeps. ![]()
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