![]() My parents had to take it away from me that night, just for a little quiet, and I cried myself to sleep. I wasn’t interested in any of the dolls or blocks or tea sets I’d been given, only that piano-plinking and plunking on it nonstop. For my birthday that year, I got one of those plastic keyboard toys done up in cotton-candy pink, the kind with fat keys that played way out of tune and drove grown-ups crazy. ![]() I STARTED PLAYING piano when I was three. When I play the piano, I rock! It would be nice if the rest of my life came together like some kind of a magical musical symphony. Using only my fingers, I can make the black and white keys dance together and do whatever I want. The black keys play sad sounds, like somebody crying. Treble like tears.įive-four-three-two-one. I can do nine keys, even ten, to make a chord, but to be honest, that sounds weird.Įach combination at the piano is different. Four or five mashed at the same time is even better. Two keys make a different sound than three played together. The fingernail-delicate tiptoeing up and down the keyboard, each touch a new sound. The three- and four-finger chords that stomp. The upstairs-downstairs scales that rise and fall. I work hard at it, always trying to find the right melodies and harmonies. I sit, hands perched with thirsty fingers, as I get ready to play. I can create any musical combination of sounds on my piano. I know that’s not an actual word, but it’s a real sound. ![]() Isabella and Darren are stopped by the police. ![]() It seems like nothing can bring Isabella’s family together again-until the worst thing happens. What does it mean to be half white or half black? To belong to half mom and half dad? And if you’re only seen as half of this and half of that, how can you ever feel whole? Her dad is black, her mom is white, and strangers are always commenting: “You’re so exotic!” “You look so unusual.” “But what are you really?” She knows what they’re really saying: “You don’t look like your parents.” “You’re different.” “What race are you really?” And when her parents, who both get engaged at the same time, get in their biggest fight ever, Isabella doesn’t just feel divided, she feels ripped in two. And she is beginning to realize that being split between Mom and Dad involves more than switching houses, switching nicknames, switching backpacks: it’s also about switching identities. Isabella feels completely stuck in the middle, split and divided between them more than ever. And now that her parents are divorced, it seems their fights are even worse, and they’re always about HER. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and her boyfriend John-Mark in a small, not-so-fancy house that she loves.īecause of this, Isabella has always felt pulled between two worlds. Draper.Įleven-year-old Isabella’s parents are divorced, so she has to switch lives every week: One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son Darren living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighborhood. Eleven-year-old Isabella’s blended family is more divided than ever in this “timely but genuine” ( Publishers Weekly) story about divorce and racial identity from the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Out of My Mind, Sharon M. ![]()
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