The Other Side
The Other Side is children's book written by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by E.B. Lewis. Released in 2001, its central metaphor a fence that divides blacks from whites.[1]
Plot
The narrator and protagonist of the story is Clover, a young African-American girl. She lives beside a fence which segregates her town. Her mother instructs her never to climb over to the other side. Then one summer, she notices a white girl on the other side of the fence. The girl seems to be very lonely and is even outside when it is raining.
Clover decides to talk to the girl on the other side of the fence. Both girls are not allowed to cross the fence, so they simply decide to sit on the fence together. First, Clover's friends will not let Annie, the girl from the other side, play with them but then all of the girls realize that the fence (a symbol separating the whites and blacks) should not be there.[2]
Anti-racism value
The Other Side is perfect for introducing a difficult topic: segregation. Understanding segregation is necessary for children to grasp the motivation behind the youthful voices that came together to change the world. The book introduces the topic through exploring the power of symbolism in literature and the real world.
The author explains that she wanted the story of Clover and Annie to be a book in which young people change the world each day through seemingly simple acts of resistance, and she wanted it to be about hope. On each page, the fence is portrayed as a silent, yet powerful representation of segregation, a topic that the young girls in the story struggle to make sense of. The symbolic illustrations and the actions of the young girls require students to think deeper, beyond the literal meaning of the text and images. As the story unfolds, we are reminded that sometimes a solution is so simple, as simple as sitting together as friends perched on a fence, grasping a better view of the world.[3]
References
- ↑ The Other Side. Retrieved on December 29, 2020.
- ↑ The Other Side. Retrieved on December 28, 2020.
- ↑ Blow, Mary. The Other Side: A Symbolic View of Segregation. Retrieved on December 29, 2020.

