I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This - Softcover

Woodson, Jacqueline

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142417041 ISBN 13: 9780142417041

Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2010

Synopsis

Jacqueline Woodson is the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Twelve-year-old Marie is a leader among the popular black girls in Chauncey, Ohio, a prosperous black suburb. She isn't looking for a friend when Lena Bright, a white girl, appears in school. Yet they are drawn to each other because both have lost their mothers. And they know how to keep a secret. For Lena has a secret that is terrifying, and she's desperate to protect herself and her younger sister from their father. Marie must decide whether she can help Lena by keeping her secret... or by telling it.

About this title

Review:

Two girls: one white, one black; one abused, one protected, both missing their mothers. An unlikely friendship ignites between the two, and, in sharing their differences, both of their lives are transformed. Jacqueline Woodson won a Coretta Scott King Honor for this moving, tightly written tale of friendship, racism, and loss. In a starred review, The Horn Book calls it a "haunting and beautifully poetic novel."

From the Inside Flap:

old Marie is a leader among the popular black girls in Chauncey, Ohio, a prosperous black suburb. She isn't looking for a friend when Lena Bright, a white girl, appears in school. Yet they are drawn to each other because both have lost their mothers. And they know how to keep a secret. For Lena has a secret that is terrifying, and she's desperate to protect herself and her younger sister from their father. Marie must decide whether she can help Lena by keeping her secret...or by telling it.
From the Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0142417041
• ISBN 13: 9780142417041
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160