Book Review: Blended, by Sharon M. Draper

Why I Picked It Up:

This book was popping up on all the blogs I follow, so I quickly went to read the teaser. Definitely a “me book,” I immediately requested it from my library.

Why I Finished It:

I am always amazed and humbled by the author who can take a complex and mature topic and package it for a younger audience, without lessening the severity of the situation. Kudos to Draper for this heart-warming delivery of two extremely difficult topics: divorce and racism. Blended follows Isabella through a moment in her twelve-year-old life. Her parents, one white and one black, divorce at the beginning of the story. Throughout the story, her parents manage to find true love and new relationships, but not without a lot of emotional baggage between the four of them. Isabella is also finding her own identity, while dealing with racism at school, in the community, and within her own family. The events that unfold are handled delicately, but they are very real and there are many obvious text-to-world connections that can be made. Throughout, the readers are privy to Isabella’s thoughts and reactions to these difficult events in her life. This allows the reader to understand the conflict she is having, as well as understand the complexities of the issues at hand.

Who I Would Give It To:

I love Blended for upper elementary. With a female lead and pink cover, it will definitely lean more “girl-book”, but if given a chance, the boys would enjoy the read as well.

Integration Ideas:

Theme and Text-to-World Connections

1. Identity, Racism, and Profiling:
   • Essential question possibilities:
     • What is equality? How can we work to achieve it?
     • How are prejudice and bias created? How do we overcome them?
     • What choices do we make about our own identities?
   • Have students grapple with one of the essential questions throughout the story, thinking about how it connects to themselves and the characters in the story.
   • How do the events in the story parallel events that are currently taking place in our world?
   • Action research – have students, in groups, come up with a way to battle racism and prejudice at school. Allow the group to follow through with their plan and let their voices be heard.
   • On page 32, Isabella’s teacher is having the class write an essay entitled The Real Me. Students can analyze this obvious connection to the theme and they can write their own essays about themselves. Have students write a personal reflection about who they are, by thinking deeply about their identity. (See Writing – Essay, Poetry, Tone below.)
   • Specific parts of interest:
     • Explaining how clothing choices can lead to prejudice (39/40)
     • The symbol of a noose (78, 132)
     • Social media connections (79, 84)
     • Discussion about advocating for equality ‘behind the scenes’ or bold and loud (89)
     • Bringing it up in conversation is difficult (100)
     • Forced to check a box on school forms (113)
     • Exploring black writers and poets (115)
     • Profiled while shopping (172)
     • Comments on being mixed race (247)
     • Police brutality (267)
     • Emotions of feeling personally attacked (286, 301)
2. Family Relationships and Divorce
   • Essential question possibilities:
     • How is conflict an inevitable part of relationships?
     • What impact does divorce have on children’s lives?
     • What is a family and what role does family play in your life?
     • How do different family structures demonstrate cultural differences?
   • Have students grapple with one of the essential questions throughout the story, thinking about how it connects to themselves and the characters in the story.
   • Specific parts of interest:
     • Confused as to where home is (61)
     • No “me time” (63)
     • Considering if she is an outsider with her stepdad (154)
     • Parents fighting (158 – many places beyond)
     • Mixed feelings about parents remarrying (203)
     • Hugs of 3 and original family togetherness (218, 289, 305)
     • Tragedy brings togetherness (282)

Writing – Essay, Poetry, Tone

As mentioned above, Isabella’s teacher assigns her fictional students to write “The Real Me” essay. Since your real students are reading such an in-depth story on finding one’s identity, this would make a perfect writing sample. Flesh out exactly what you want students to write about themselves, but leave the students some choice. In other words, they will have to focus on what part of themselves they will share. Possibilities are how their family creates their identity, how their name creates their identity, how their culture creates their identity, etc. An essay like this is begging for a creative visual display!

Isabella experiments with writing poetry throughout the story. Students can choose one event from their life that “gave them strong feels” to write a poem. It doesn’t matter what form the students use to write the poem, but I always provide a scaffold to writers who need it. In this case, the scaffold would be a poetry frame. Again, set your guidelines. I ask students to think about what emotion they are feeling and compare it to something else. I have the students activate at least two of the five senses in their poems.

Isabella is very into music and the sounds created in relation to emotion. Students should take their writing pieces and set them to music. Choose an instrumental piece that captures the tone of their writing. Share it with the class and explain how it connects. Try looking at the Spotify Mood Page or All Music’s extensive list of moods. Apple Music also has an Activities and Moods playlist section, as does Amazon Music.

Vocabulary

Always choose only a few words to really teach! {And if you want us to come to your campus with fabulous vocabulary ideas – contact us!}

• curtly (23)
• impoverished (38)
• oblivious (40)
• resplendent (50)
• intimidated (54)
• confrontation (59)
• emphatically (92, 99, 134)
• incredulous (99)
• deliberately (108)
• grouse (112)
• syncopation (123)
• haltingly (133)
• agitated (150)
• momentous (154)
• underestimate (165)
• wistfully (167)
• luxurious (171)
• chortling (205)
• tersely (215)
• cryptically (221)
• devour (292)

Websites of Interest

• One of my favorite websites for ideas on teaching tolerance!
• Sharon M. Draper’s website
• The National Education Association has links on how to approach Black Lives Matter in the classroom.
• We Need Diverse Books – “Imagine a world where all children can see themselves in the pages of a book.”

How do you use this book in your classroom?