Benedict, Helen. The opposite of love; half black, half white in a black-and-white world.BENEDICT, Helen. The opposite of love; half black, half white in a black-and-white world. Penguin,Viking. 304p. c2007. 0-670-06135-8. $16.99. S Believing fiercely in Elie Wiesel's quote, "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference," 17-year-old Madge struggles to swim against the thrust of racism, poverty, and neglect. Everywhere she looks, including in her own biological family, she is surrounded by white people. Life has been difficult for her going to school in a small town in Pennsylvania where she is the only person of color Noun 1. person of color - (formal) any non-European non-white person person of colour individual, mortal, person, somebody, someone, soul - a human being; "there was too much for one person to do" , and the students call her "brillo-head" and burnt. Her white, ex-convict mother--who lives in America illegally--complicates her life even more with her disappearances, disapproval, and disinterest dis·in·ter·est n. 1. Freedom from selfish bias or self-interest; impartiality. 2. Lack of interest; indifference. tr.v. To divest of interest. Noun 1. . To add to Madge's search for identity, she has no idea who (or where) her Jamaican father is. When she sees Timmy, a neglected boy in Harlem with skin color like her own, she refuses to pretend to be blind like the people around her. Instead, she examines his plight and takes action by kidnapping Timmy in an effort to protect him. The Opposite of Love is filled with tightly woven lines. Benedict's use of poetic language shines in phrases like "drawers hanging open like panting panting rapid, shallow breathing, a characteristic heat-losing reaction in dogs; represents an increase in dead-space ventilation resulting in heat loss without necessarily increasing oxygen uptake or carbon dioxide loss. tongues." Her descriptive passages (the main street of Madge's town is depicted as "empty as a bigot's head") mix humor and gloom in Benedict's first novel for a YA audience. The foster care system, racial discrimination, and prejudice-induced self-loathing are only a few of the important topics Benedict tackles without didacticism di·dac·tic also di·dac·ti·cal adj. 1. Intended to instruct. 2. Morally instructive. 3. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively. . This is an issue-laden novel that teens who have moved from looking inward to looking outward for opportunities to help others will find challenging. KaaVonia Hinton, Ph,D., Old Dominion University “ODU” redirects here. For other uses, see ODU (disambiguation). The university was recently named one of the best colleges in the Southeast by The Princeton Review. , Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States of America. With a population of 234,403 as of the 2000 census, Norfolk is Virginia's second-largest incorporated city. S--Recommended for senior high school students. |
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