Overview

Does growing up have to mean growing apart? From Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Renée Watson comes a poignant novel about love for home and for ourselves, embracing change, and what it means to grow up. Identical twins Maya and Nikki have always agreed on the important things—their friends, the right boys, their plans for college and the future. But before senior year begins, too many things are changing. Their neighborhood is starting to get nice—and not really in a way Maya enjoys. With houses turning into trendy coffee shops and restaurants, and neighbors, including their best friend, Essence, being pushed out, Maya’s neighborhood is becoming unrecognizable. And when a new—White—family buys the house Essence’s mom rented, Nikki suddenly has a new best friend and Maya has a new admirer, someone she’s not sure she should like. And then there’s their principal, intent on prioritizing the comfort of White students at the expense of the school’s largely Black identity. What’s worse, no one seems to be as alarmed by these changes as Maya is—not even Nikki. As Maya struggles to hold on, she begins to wonder where—and with whom—she belongs.

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9781599906683

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Reviews

An intriguing look at how families and young people cope with community and personal change. Readers may be surpised to find this multicultural story set in Portland, Oregon, but that just adds to its distinctive appeal. Here's hoping Watson's teen debut will be followed by many more. -- Kirkus Reviews Watson delivers a well-rounded, delicate, and important story without sacrificing any heart. An engrossing and timely coming-of-age story. -- School Library Journal In This Side of Home, Renee Watson's loving, descriptive powers are in full force. She's sharing a vibrant world so well, friends who make us care, crackling true voices and legacies, interweave of troubles, knowing a place, wanting it never to change except in good ways, holding on to friends, doorways, porches, rooms and rhythms, don't go, don't go, the tiny rich glories making it home. 'Sometimes you have to rewrite your own history, ' she says, then she lets her people do it, reshaping . . . 'A cleansing is taking place' and it's the world we live in and she gives it back to us so we understand the mystery a little better even if we can't solve it, even if nothing is ever quite fair. There's more there, and she finds it. --Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Habibi Inspiring, authentic, and told in a straightforward yet poetic style. -- Publishers Weekly on What Momma Left Me This debut novel is an excellent choice for libraries serving urban populations, as well as those serving faith-based communities. -- School Library Journal on What Momma Left Me A profound tribute to the power of friendship to heal and give us hope in troubled times. --Caroline Kennedy on A Place Where Hurricanes Happen With a text that stylistically sings yet is packed with information. -- Booklist, starred review, on Harlem's Little Blackbird

In This Side of Home , Renee Watson's loving, descriptive powers are in full force. She's sharing a vibrant world so well, friends who make us care, crackling true voices and legacies, interweave of troubles, knowing a place, wanting it never to change except in good ways, holding on to friends, doorways, porches, rooms and rhythms, don't go, don't go, the tiny rich glories making it home. 'Sometimes you have to rewrite your own history, ' she says, then she lets her people do it, reshaping . . . 'A cleansing is taking place' and it's the world we live in and she gives it back to us so we understand the mystery a little better even if we can't solve it, even if nothing is ever quite fair. There's more there, and she finds it. --Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Habibi Inspiring, authentic, and told in a straightforward yet poetic style. -- Publishers Weekly on What Momma Left Me This debut novel is an excellent choice for libraries serving urban populations, as well as those serving faith-based communities. -- School Library Journal on What Momma Left Me A profound tribute to the power of friendship to heal and give us hope in troubled times. --Caroline Kennedy on A Place Where Hurricanes Happen With a text that stylistically sings yet is packed with information. -- Booklist , starred review, on Harlem's Little Blackbird

An intriguing look at how families and young people cope with community and personal change. Readers may be surpised to find this multicultural story set in Portland, Oregon, but that just adds to its distinctive appeal. Here's hoping Watson's teen debut will be followed by many more. -- Kirkus Reviews Watson delivers a well-rounded, delicate, and important story without sacrificing any heart. An engrossing and timely coming-of-age story. -- School Library Journal Watson hits key topics of class, race, and changing neighborhoods while telling a story about growing up, growing apart, and how love can come out of the blue, as well as across racial lines. -- Publishers Weekly In This Side of Home, Renee Watson's loving, descriptive powers are in full force. She's sharing a vibrant world so well, friends who make us care, crackling true voices and legacies, interweave of troubles, knowing a place, wanting it never to change except in good ways, holding on to friends, doorways, porches, rooms and rhythms, don't go, don't go, the tiny rich glories making it home. 'Sometimes you have to rewrite your own history, ' she says, then she lets her people do it, reshaping . . . 'A cleansing is taking place' and it's the world we live in and she gives it back to us so we understand the mystery a little better even if we can't solve it, even if nothing is ever quite fair. There's more there, and she finds it. --Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Habibi Inspiring, authentic, and told in a straightforward yet poetic style. -- Publishers Weekly on What Momma Left Me This debut novel is an excellent choice for libraries serving urban populations, as well as those serving faith-based communities. -- School Library Journal on What Momma Left Me A profound tribute to the power of friendship to heal and give us hope in troubled times. --Caroline Kennedy on A Place Where Hurricanes Happen With a text that stylistically sings yet is packed with information. -- Booklist, starred review, on Harlem's Little Blackbird

In This Side of Home, Renee Watson's loving, descriptive powers are in full force. She's sharing a vibrant world so well, friends who make us care, crackling true voices and legacies, interweave of troubles, knowing a place, wanting it never to change except in good ways, holding on to friends, doorways, porches, rooms and rhythms, don't go, don't go, the tiny rich glories making it home. 'Sometimes you have to rewrite your own history, ' she says, then she lets her people do it, reshaping . . . 'A cleansing is taking place' and it's the world we live in and she gives it back to us so we understand the mystery a little better even if we can't solve it, even if nothing is ever quite fair. There's more there, and she finds it. --Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Habibi Inspiring, authentic, and told in a straightforward yet poetic style. -- Publishers Weekly on What Momma Left Me This debut novel is an excellent choice for libraries serving urban populations, as well as those serving faith-based communities. -- School Library Journal on What Momma Left Me A profound tribute to the power of friendship to heal and give us hope in troubled times. --Caroline Kennedy on A Place Where Hurricanes Happen With a text that stylistically sings yet is packed with information. -- Booklist, starred review, on Harlem's Little Blackbird

Author Information

Renée Watson is a New York Times bestselling author. Her novel, Piecing Me Together, received a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award. Her books include Ways to Make Sunshine, Some Places More Than Others, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, Betty Before X, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz, and Watch Us Rise, cowritten with Ellen Hagan, as well as two acclaimed picture books: A Place Where Hurricanes Happen and Harlem’s Little Blackbird, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Renée grew up in Portland, Oregon, and splits her time between Portland and New York City. www.reneewatson.net @harlemportland (Instagram)

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