Ok so I'm going to start my reaction to Sharon Draper's Romiette and Julio by looking closely at an excerpt that I really enjoyed. I thought it was a powerful moment and wanted to share it with the Goodreads world.

On the fourth page of the book, Romiette, the narrator, writes:

"I hate picky people, watermelon, and chocolate. I hate gangs, violence and movies with too much sex and cussing. There are gangs in our school now, and it's a little scary because they want to control with threats and punches the actions and thinkings of kids and i can't be bothered with that, so they don't like me much" (Romiette and Julio p. 4).

First of all, I love when authors introduce characters in their stories by listing a number of traits that define them. This is a cool way to let your readers know exactly what your character is like, and to show a little bit about what they might become. At the start of Romiette and Julio, Romiette writes this passage into her journal. She reveals a lot about who she is and what she wants in life. I felt that this was a great way to open the book.

Romiette's fear about gang violence reminds me of students I've taught in my career, who have so much to say about the way kids treat each other in and out of school. I feel terrible for children who are bullied or mistreated by others, while being totally innocent themselves. When I see this type of behavior as a teacher, I wish I could solve all of my students' problems. But I can't.

I predict that this novel will deal with the issue of violence between opposing groups of kids. This is an important social issue for writers to discuss because violence really exists. Kids are faced with it everyday.