White Wash By Ntozake Shange

This book shocked me the most out of all the controversial picture books. I liked the cover of the book because it foreshadowed what was going to take place. I think that for teachers and parents that do not want to talk about racial subjects they would know from the cover this was not a book for them to read to a child. The font is very realistic to what graffiti looks like, making the illustrations more reasonable. The illustrations set the tone for the book. They illustrate two black children with dark blue and purple colors behind them, this is a symbol for danger, unlike bright yellow that could represent happy and cheerful emotions. The font is also typed to look handwritten like it could be graffiti too. I like how the pictures take up most of the page, making the reader aware of what is going on to the girl visually. I was disturbed that these "Hawks" attacked a young girl calling her a "mud" person. I think that this book is for an older audience who understands that this event that took place is not appropriate. I felt sorry for the girl because she was spray painted white in the face. Racism still exists and that is why it is important to introduce the topic to students. I think that this book does a good job of having a happy ending because her classmates protect her and make her feel happy in the end. I noticed that the class was multi raced and that even the white students came to Helene-Angel's house. If I were to use this book in my classroom I would make sure that the students understand what diversity is and talk about bullying.