Customer Reviews

The Other Side

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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What baby boomer cannot relate to a book that portrays the "dividing line" that separated blacks and whites in this country prior to the Civil Rights Movement!!!

This story shows two youngsters, one black and one white, that come to bridge the gap by making a simple gesture of sitting on the fence that comes between their two homes.

Such a simple act has great power and the book is perfect for primary and elementary learners, thought-provoking and beautifully illustrated.

This is a touching story about how children don't see black and white, but see potential friendship and possibilities. Two little girls learn how to work around "the fence" that adults have constructed and find a friend. For teachers, this is a fabulous book for teaching questioning strategies in reading. The illustrations are wonderful.

This is a story about a young African American girl who is not supposed to play on the other side of the fence because "that's the way things are." There is a white girl who lives on the other side. The two children study one another from afar until one day they meet on opposite sides of the fence. Though neither of them are allowed to climb over the fence, their friendship blossoms as they both sit on top of it. A subtle way to show children that friendship can overcome any barrier...even race.

This is a beautiful and subtle story. While the story metaphorically uses a fence as the boundary constructed between people of different races, the metaphor could also be used to represent the boundaries that always seem to exist between people who are different from one another. If we all could only meet each other at those fences, like these little girls...

"That summer the fence that stretched through our town seemed bigger. We lived in a yellow house on one side of it. White people lived on the other. And Mama said, "Don't climb over that fence when you play." She said it wasn't safe..." Soon our narrator, Clover, sees a little white girl, Annie, hanging on the fence and staring into their yard, day after day. She was always alone. Finally, one day Clover gets close enough to the fence to talk to the little girl. They exchange names, and smiles, and pretty soon the two are sitting together on top of the fence. "My mama says I shouldn't go on the other side," I said. "My mama says the same thing. But she never said nothing about sitting on it." "Neither did mine," I said. That summer me and Annie sat on that fence and watched the whole wide world around us..." Jacqueline Woodson's eloquent and understated prose captures the feel of the old South in the 1950's, before integration, and is both poignant and uplifting. E B Lewis's elegant watercolors complement the text with expressive heartwarming and lifelike illustrations in soft summer tones. Together, word and art paint an engaging portrait of times gone by with a gentle message that won't be lost on young readers. Perfect for youngsters 7-10, or as a read aloud for younger children, The Other Side is a sensitive and evocative story, told with great insight, wisdom, and truth. "Someday somebody's going to come along and knock this old fence down," Annie said. And I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "Someday."

Moving, simple, perfect. It needs to be in every library, and dare I say every home. It is one of those rare read alouds that will hold children ages 5-12 spellbound. A great choice for literature circles, it's especially strong for questioning.

This picture book is an excellent book. It helps explain in simple terms what life was like during the civil war. The story involves two girls, one is white, the other is African American. They live on either side of a fence. Their mothers tell them that they can not cross the fence, the girls listen to their mothers for a while and sit on the fence but never crossing it. After a while the girls eventually cross the fence, and suprisingly no one seems to mind, so they continue their friendship.

When reading through this book I was throughly impressed with the authour's talented description of the events that were taking place. The pictures protrayed a great image of actions of the girls. This book is for children who are just learning about how segragation used to be. Parents, this is a amazing book to read to your children, when teaaching them about old times. This book clearly gets the point across in an entertaining manner. I definately reccommend this to younger kids.

Do you like sad, heart-touching children stories? Then you would love, The Other Side. It's a children's story by Jacqueline Woodson. The main characters are of different race, and they end up getting along very well and becoming friends. The main idea of The Other Side is that people, especially kids, can get along with someone even though they are different.
Another main point is that children can teach adults a lot about getting along and accepting people for who they are. The book is written for children to understand and also for adults to learn about how it was for children and parents in the past. The Other Side is a great realistic fiction book and will teach people of all ages about history of segregation.

The Other Side
I used this picture book to teach symbolism to my middle school students. My students connected Woodson's fence to Jerry Spinelli's Hector Street in our class novel, Maniac Magee. After an engaging reading,they concluded that both the fence and Hector Street represent that which divides us: ignorance. Picture books, especially The Other Side,are excellent tools for teaching literary elements. Most importantly, students of all ages enjoy them.