Coretta Scott King Award recipient Sharon M. Draper (Out of My Mind, Stella by Starlight, Panic) offers a timely middle-grade novel that addresses divorce, racism and identity in her trademark empathic and accessible style.
Isabella is an exceptional pianist, has two best friends, is obsessed with making glitter slime, and has loving, supportive parents. Unfortunately, when Isabella was eight, her parents divorced. The adjustment was challenging, but now Izzy is 11, and things have gotten rougher. Her dad, who had been living in California, moved back to Ohio last year and the court has ordered that she spend alternating weeks with each parent. Her parents are fighting more than ever and the tension is unbearable, especially when both make plans to marry their new partners on the same day.
Underneath the stress of feuding parents is Izzy's dawning awareness that having a black father and a white mother brings an array of complications. "Do you think people think I'm black or white when they see me? Am I black? Or white?" she asks her father. He replies, koan-like, "Yes." And when her black friend Imani finds a noose in her locker after a classroom discussion about lynching, the issue is suddenly even more immediate.
Blended is a graceful novel about family and identity that will enlighten and entertain readers. Draper's insight into the world of an 11-year-old girl is uncanny. Izzy is by turns silly and bewildered, anxious and confident. But when a racial incident even more shocking than the noose throws her life into the media "horror story of the day," Izzy's family finally pulls together like a Beethoven sonata: "White keys./ Black keys./ Blended perfectly." --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor