The Other Half of My Heart

by Sundee T. Frazier Narrated by Bahni Turpin

Overview

The story of biracial twin sisters-one black, one white-and the summer that tests their strong bond,*from the author of Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award-winner Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It.
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When Minerva and Keira King were born, they made headlines: Keira is black like Mama, but Minni is white like Daddy. Together the family might look like part of a chessboard row, but they are first and foremost the close-knit Kings. Then Grandmother Johnson calls, to invite the twins down South to compete for the title of Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America.
* * *Minni dreads the spotlight, but Keira assures her that together they'll get through their stay with Grandmother Johnson. But when their grandmother's bias against Keira reveals itself, Keira pulls away from her twin. Minni has always believed that no matter how different she and Keira are, they share a deep bond of the heart. Now she'll find out whether that's really true.

"One luminous pearl of a sister story."--RITA WILLIAMS-GARCIA, author of the Newbery Honor Award-winner*One Crazy Summer

Winner of the Skipping Stone Honor Award
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*"Frazier highlights the contradictions, absurdities, humor, and pain that accompany life as a mixed-race tween. Never didactic, this is the richest portrait of multiracial identity and family since Virginia Hamilton's 1976 novel Arilla Sun Down. An outstanding achievement."-Kirkus Reviews, Starred
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*"Not only does Frazier raise questions worth pondering, but her ability to round out each character, looking past easy explanations for attitude, is impressive. . . . A novel with a great deal of heart indeed."-Booklist, Starred

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Funny and deeply affecting, this novel by the Steptoe Award winner for Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It (2007) revisits the still largely unexplored world of multiracial heritage...Frazier highlights the contradictions, absurdities, humor and pain that accompany life as a mixed-race tween. Never didactic, this is the richest portrait of multiracial identity and family since Virginia Hamilton's 1976 novel Arilla Sun Down. An outstanding achievement."
-Kirkus Reviews, starred review


"A novel with a great deal of heart indeed..."
- Booklist, starred review

JULY 2011 - AudioFile

Minerva and Keira King are one-in-a-million twins, not because they were born in a Cessna, but because Minni is white like their dad and Keira is black like their mom. Minni often wishes she looked more like the other women in her family, but she doesn't learn what it truly means to be different until the twins visit their Southern grandmother to compete in a black preteen beauty pageant. Narrator Bahni Turpin invests Minni's voice with a youthful lilt that convincingly conveys both her sense of mischief and her deepening confusion as she struggles with self-identity. Using a variety of pitches and light accents, Turpin increases the accessibility of this coming-of-age story—perfect for family listening. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Funny and deeply affecting, this novel by the Steptoe Award winner for Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It (2007) revisits the still largely unexplored world of multiracial heritage. Twin daughters of a black mom and white dad, Minerva and Keira King, 11, fly from Washington State to North Carolina to stay with oppressive Grandmother Johnson and compete in the Miss Black Pearl Preteen pageant. The narrator, shy Minni, who appears white, is reluctant; outgoing Keira, who appears black, is thrilled. Back home, Minni has unknowingly benefited from white privilege, while Keira's appearance has subjected her to bias. In North Carolina, Keira fits in, and Minni stands out. Although she's favored by their grandmother, Minni's white appearance leads others to question her right to identify as black. As their experience of race threatens to divide the sisters, Minni struggles to heal the rift. Frazier highlights the contradictions, absurdities, humor and pain that accompany life as a mixed-race tween. Never didactic, this is the richest portrait of multiracial identity and family since Virginia Hamilton's 1976 novel Arilla Sun Down. An outstanding achievement. (Fiction. 9-12)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169059274
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/14/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

Mama was always pointing out that of the millions of genes that made them all human, only seven or eight told their skin what color to be. A minuscule number, she said. A very small difference. So that was what Minni chose to believe, even though somewhere deep inside her brain, in a little drawer she rarely let herself open, lived the concern that the difference she'd been assured didn't matter actually mattered a lot. She squeezed her sister's hand and made an early birthday wish: May nothing ever, ever come between Keira and me. Nothing—big or small.

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