Eleven-year-old Isabella's blended family is more divided than ever in
this thoughtful 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 even more stuck in the
middle, split and divided between them than ever. And she's is beginning
to realize that being split between Mom and Dad is 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: "You're so exotic!" "You look so unusual." "But
what are you really?" She knows what they're really saying: "You don't
look like your parents." "You're different." "What race are you really?"
And when her parents, who both 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
belong to half mom and half dad? And if you're only seen as half of this
and half of that, how can you ever feel whole?
It seems like nothing can bring Isabella's family together again--until
the worst happens. Isabella and Darren are stopped by the police. A cell
phone is mistaken for a gun. And shots are fired.
