Racial Harmony in Picture Book Form: The Other Side

Reading List
Written By Rebecca Grabill

The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson. Putnum, 2001.

Beautiful, moving, inspiring. Woodson writes with a lovely, authentic voice and tells a story of hope for racial reconciliation by showing instead of telling. The fence is an obvious metaphor, but the symbolism could easily transcend race and encourage harmony and healing in other areas as well.

Delightful, timeless illustrations take the book from the here and now which, somehow, makes it all the easier to apply the lesson to our current circumstances. In the end the girls don’t break the rules of segregation, they just find a way around them, all to the mother’s wonder at their ingenuity. Lesson learned: creativity and persistence can overcome any obstacle.

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Rebecca Grabill

Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.

www.rebeccagrabill.com
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