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A review by sausome
The House You Pass on the Way by Jacqueline Woodson
3.0
A quick read, but quite interesting. The racial issues along with the questioning of sexuality as 14-year-olds makes for a fairly intelligent story. I'm glad I read it!
p.5 "Again & again she had searched through the photo albums. Again & again she saw the pictures of Evangeline Ian -- pretty, smiling baby. As she grew older, that smiling baby girl became her own tiny burden. She was the good child -- the happy one. The one that never needed, never asked for anything, never caused any trouble."
p.6 "But Mama was more than 'white.' She was Mama, quiet & easygoing. She kept to herself. When she smiled, her whole face brightened, & tiny dimples showed at the edge of her lips. Why as white the word that hung on people's lips? At school, when the kids talked about her mama, they whispered the word or said, 'Your mama's white !' and it sounded loud & ugly, like something was wrong with Mama. And if something was wrong with Mama, then that meant that something was wrong with all of them.
Some evenings they would sit out on the porch laughing & carrying on ... Those evenings, they were not black or white or interracial. They were just a family on a porch, laughing & making music ... And when people asked her what it felt like to be both black and white, she didn't have an answer for them."
p.54 "It was the kind of beautiful you couldn't put a finger on. Separately, all the parts of Tyler's face didn't add up to anything. But together they were beautiful."
p.5 "Again & again she had searched through the photo albums. Again & again she saw the pictures of Evangeline Ian -- pretty, smiling baby. As she grew older, that smiling baby girl became her own tiny burden. She was the good child -- the happy one. The one that never needed, never asked for anything, never caused any trouble."
p.6 "But Mama was more than 'white.' She was Mama, quiet & easygoing. She kept to herself. When she smiled, her whole face brightened, & tiny dimples showed at the edge of her lips. Why as white the word that hung on people's lips? At school, when the kids talked about her mama, they whispered the word or said, 'Your mama's white !' and it sounded loud & ugly, like something was wrong with Mama. And if something was wrong with Mama, then that meant that something was wrong with all of them.
Some evenings they would sit out on the porch laughing & carrying on ... Those evenings, they were not black or white or interracial. They were just a family on a porch, laughing & making music ... And when people asked her what it felt like to be both black and white, she didn't have an answer for them."
p.54 "It was the kind of beautiful you couldn't put a finger on. Separately, all the parts of Tyler's face didn't add up to anything. But together they were beautiful."