The Color of Character

Book CoversFor the record, I’ve nev­er had a nose job, or tried to bleach my skin. I do not straight­en my hair—not that there’s any­thing wrong with that. The fact is, for decades now, I have worn my hair nat­ur­al in cel­e­bra­tion of my African her­itage. I am now, and have always been, black and proud.

That said, I take issue with the fact that review­ers rou­tine­ly begin every dis­cus­sion of my books by iden­ti­fy­ing my char­ac­ters as African Amer­i­can. Now, before you chime in with com­ments about eth­nic pride (“My Greek friends refer to them­selves as Greek Amer­i­cans,” one woman told me, while anoth­er said “I’d nev­er call myself Greek-Amer­i­can”) that’s not what I’m talk­ing about, here. Under con­sid­er­a­tion here are how books are defined in terms of race.

As I not­ed in a con­ver­sa­tion on Face­book, if I were Ital­ian, no review­er would refer to the char­ac­ters in my book as Ital­ian-Amer­i­can, unless that her­itage was of par­tic­u­lar con­se­quence in the sto­ry­line. Yet, when it comes to my books, no such dis­tinc­tion is made. The specter of race is raised right out of the gate, with every title, near­ly every time, sub­ject notwith­stand­ing. Just recent­ly, I read an oth­er­wise won­der­ful review of my lat­est nov­el, Plan­et Mid­dle School that did exact­ly that.

Sigh.

I know it’s pos­si­ble to write a thought­ful review of this book with­out men­tion­ing race because K.T. Horn­ing cre­at­ed one for Book­list. Now, since I’ve been in the busi­ness for more than 30 years, and most of my books have cen­tered on char­ac­ters of African Amer­i­can descent, it can be assumed, with­out prej­u­dice, that my new book does so as well. How­ev­er, race is by no means ger­mane to the sub­ject or treat­ment of this par­tic­u­lar nov­el. You’d nev­er know that, though, accord­ing to the first review ref­er­enced above. Why does that mat­ter? I’m glad you asked.

I under­stand why librar­i­ans might want to be able to quick­ly iden­ti­fy titles of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to African Amer­i­can read­ers. And were I a first, or sec­ond, or third time author, with no track record, or body of work, or sta­tus in the chil­dren’s book com­mu­ni­ty, one might argue the impor­tance of men­tion­ing race, at least ini­tial­ly, in con­nec­tion with my titles. How­ev­er, none of that is the case.

At this stage of the game, most peo­ple involved with, or mak­ing use of, chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture know that I’m African Amer­i­can, and that my pri­ma­ry char­ac­ters are, in the main, African Amer­i­can, too. Mind you, I’m not sug­gest­ing that I’m “famous” in the sense that we speak of celebri­ties (God for­bid!), but mere­ly that I am well estab­lished in the chil­dren’s book com­mu­ni­ty, and it is a fair­ly sim­ple mat­ter to ascer­tain that the char­ac­ters of most of my books are African Amer­i­can with­out hav­ing the fact men­tioned in review after review after review. Besides, the cov­er art makes it plain, does it not? (I’ve all but begged pub­lish­ers to con­sid­er cre­at­ing cov­ers for my books that are not always race-spe­cif­ic, but to no avail!)

“But,” you ask, “what if the cov­er art is not includ­ed in the review?” No prob­lem. Take two sec­onds to go to IndieBound.org or Amazon.com or the Barnes and Noble web­site, click on the title in ques­tion, and up pops the telling cov­er art, in no time flat. Prob­lem solved. And oh, by the way, if race is the only com­mon denom­i­na­tor book buy­ers are inter­est­ed in, they’re free to check out the spe­cial list­ings pub­lish­ers pro­duce each year to high­light their own black and mul­ti­cul­tur­al titles. Most pub­lish­ers’ cat­a­logs I see, these days, have a sec­tion set aside for those titles. And don’t for­get the annu­al Pub­lish­er’s Week­ly issue on black books in—when is that? February?

Of course, my issue with the whole race ques­tion in dis­cussing chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture (or any lit­er­a­ture, for that mat­ter) is, if you will, more than skin deep. I have a prob­lem with seg­re­gat­ing teach­ing or read­ing prac­tices in all schools, whether a school is seg­re­gat­ed or racial­ly mixed. Be a stu­dent black, brown, yel­low, or white-skinned, he should be encour­aged to read a diverse selec­tion of good books by authors of every race. Period.

Is a book well writ­ten? Is the sto­ry well told? Will the sub­ject mat­ter res­onate with read­ers? Does the book have the poten­tial for mak­ing an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with read­ers? These are the kinds of ques­tions teach­ers and librar­i­ans should be focused on. In the case of books in which race is cen­tral to the sto­ry­line, race should absolute­ly come in for a men­tion. But where it does not, it should not. That is my contention.

Race, as an explic­it des­ig­na­tion in books, has a mar­ket­ing com­po­nent that can’t be over­looked. Books iden­ti­fied as “black” are fre­quent­ly mar­gin­al­ized in the mar­ket­ing plan. Their appeal is auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered to be nar­row­er than books writ­ten by Cau­casian authors, some­times even when those books are about non-white char­ac­ters. The point-of-view is assumed to be uni­ver­sal, sim­ply by virtue of the white author’s race. In the sell­ers’ mind, a so-called “black book,” i.e., a book writ­ten by a black author, should be exclu­sive­ly mar­ket­ed to black buy­ers. As such, said books are rarely made avail­able in out­lets locat­ed in pre­dom­i­nant­ly white neigh­bor­hoods. This makes me crazy because I have avid fans in those neigh­bor­hoods, too. I know because I meet them dur­ing my school vis­its, and find their let­ters among my fan mail. Luck­i­ly for me (and them?) they were exposed to my work at their local library.

I can’t help but won­der how many stu­dents are miss­ing out on these read­ing expe­ri­ences because my “black books” aren’t being mar­ket­ed to a broad­er audi­ence. I nev­er know whether to ball my fists or cry.

I find myself annoyed by review­ers who give my books left-hand­ed com­pli­ments. In the first sen­tence of their review, they’ll men­tion the African Amer­i­can lead char­ac­ter. Then, in the final sen­tence, they’ll offer some ver­sion of “but the sto­ry has uni­ver­sal appeal.” Well, duh! If that’s the case, why both­er to point out the fact that the char­ac­ter is African American?

(A ques­tion just came to me. Can you imag­ine refer­ring to a com­put­er pro­gram design, or a med­ical break­through, or a work of archi­tec­ture as “black” sim­ply because the cre­ator was African Amer­i­can? I’m just won­der­ing. Where do we draw the line?)

As I sit at my com­put­er, typ­ing this blog, I think back on some of the gor­geous­ly craft­ed, well-imag­ined books I read last year as a judge for the Nation­al Book Award. I would hate to think that African Amer­i­can stu­dents will miss out on the titles that don’t hap­pen to fea­ture African Amer­i­can char­ac­ters, or that white stu­dents will miss out on those books that do. What a cry­ing shame!

I might be inclined to shrug my shoul­ders and say, “Maybe it’s just me,” except I know it isn’t. There are oth­er authors of col­or who are bugged by this issue, as well. (And what about those authors who are from South Africa, but are not black? What kind of box do review­ers put their books into? Oh, what a tan­gled web we weave when first we prac­tice to give race more than its due!) Still, I can’t speak for all authors of African descent. It’s quite pos­si­ble that some are con­tent to have their entire body of work boiled down to the col­or of their skin. As for me, I’d rather be known for writ­ing books that are mov­ing, inspir­ing, impact­ing, emo­tion­al­ly charged, beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten, clev­er­ly con­struct­ed and—oh, yeah—universally appealing!

But that’s just me.

164 Responses

  1. No–not just you, Nikki.
    K.T. Horn­ing has thought deeply about this for a long time; not sur­pris­ing that she gets this.
    And as a Cau­ca­sion author, I want to say you’re right that when my books fea­ture African Amer­i­can char­ac­ters, that does­n’t seem to be men­tioned in the reviews. Though when I meet read­ers, espe­cial­ly read­ers of KEESHA’S HOUSE, they some­times express sur­prise that I’m not black, and ask ques­tions about the race of the characters.
    I wish this was­n’t such an effort, and hope it all gets eas­i­er. I want your books to be wide­ly read.

    1. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. I don’t think the race of the peole is nec­es­sary because what is impor­tant is the sto­ry and the mean­ing behind it, not what col­or the peo­ple in the book are. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone because he isn’t afraid to speak his mind and does­n’t hold back what he feels he has to say. My favorite poem is “Bruised Love” because Chankara’s sis­ter allows peo­ple to hurt her so Chankara has learned from her sis­ters mis­take and now she stands up for her­self and won’t let any­one hurt her like her sis­ter con­tin­u­al­ly does.

      1. Hel­lo, I just want to start out say­ing Nik­ki I loved your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I believe that no mat­ter what col­or the The Char­ac­ters are the mes­sage and Impact should not be any diffrent. The Sto­ry is great because every­one can relate to the charc­ters feel­ings. I noticed that every char­ac­ter was afraid to share their feel­ings in the begin­ing of “Open Mike Fri­days” but towards the end they were vent­ing there feel­ing and i real­ly liked that because you could see the oth­er side of them.

  2. I’m not African Amer­i­can but I am total­ly with you on this. Review­ers should be much more thought­ful about this. I also think pub­lish­ers don’t always HAVE to use rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al cov­ers. The col­or of a char­ac­ter on the cov­er might make a child of African descent say, “This book isn’t for me,” or on the flip side, might make a white child think the book isn’t for her.

    I’ve also gen­tly chid­ed friends in the Jew­ish Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture cir­cles for label­ing The All-of-a-Kind Fam­i­ly series as a Jew­ish books. As a gen­tile grow­ing up NOT know­ing Jew­ish peo­ple well, I adored the books and I loved this fam­i­ly. Chil­dren’s books are meant to widen our expe­ri­ence. I want to see African-Amer­i­can kids readi­ing about white peo­ple and white kids read­ing about African-Amer­i­can kids, etc. Labels lim­it their appeal.

    Obvi­ous­ly there are books cen­ter­ing around civ­il rights and slav­ery that are clear­ly about African Amer­i­can char­ac­ters. But some­thing like Plan­et Mid­dle School can and should be enjoyed by all.

    Thanks for sound­ing off, Nik­ki, and keep it up!

  3. I love your books Nik­ki and I love you and your skin col­or. You are so right. Your books should­n’t be “labeled” except maybe “chil­dren” or “youth” or “fir read­ers if all ages,” because if I being a ‑uh- Amer­i­can-Amer­i­can who can relate to your books dispite hav­ing a dif­fer­ent shade of skin then you, then why lim­it the audi­ence to your mar­velous books that can be enjoyed by youths and adults of any shade. Our skin may be dif­fer­ent but we all hope and hurt and fall in love. Thanks for your thoughts on this sub­ject because it makes me made that I have to go into the city to find most of your books. (Thank you, Lord Jesus, for Pow­ell’s Book­store that car­ries authors of every shade.)

  4. Point well made, Nik­ki, and I so agree. Change is slow, but I feel con­fi­dent that it’s pos­si­ble, espe­cial­ly as we raise ques­tions and have dis­cus­sions about prac­tices that are suspect. 

    Here’s an exam­ple in a very dif­fer­ent set­ting but over the same basic issue: a few years back our hos­pi­tal stopped des­ig­nat­ing race in patients’ his­to­ries. Where at one time they would have read, “40 year old AA male suf­fered SDH [brain injury] dur­ing mov­ing vehi­cle acci­dent.…” now the “AA” for African Amer­i­can is omit­ted (and mind you, when the patient was cau­ca­sion, no race was stat­ed). Some­one raised the ques­tion, and thank­ful­ly, it was deter­mined that recov­ery from brain injuries (etc)is unaf­fect­ed by skin col­or (all races share the same col­ors beneath the skin!) So now I go into a new patien­t’s room not know­ing what col­or his or her skin is, unless the sur­name gives a hint — Nguyen, or Gon­za­lez.… It’s very refreshing!

    I look for­ward to a time when your books are reviewed for the clever, mov­ing sto­ries they are, period.

  5. This sen­ti­ment reminds me of the way I feel about being pushed as a teacher to find books that get African Amer­i­can males to read. I am eter­nal­ly frus­trat­ed because I have nev­er seen my stu­dents as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the “sub-groups” that No Child Left Behind has forced us to “address.” I have always (and will always) see my stu­dents as indi­vid­u­als with indi­vid­ual inter­ests defined by their own per­son­al­i­ties and expe­ri­ences, not by any “sub­group” to which they might belong. I am in the busi­ness of know­ing my stu­dents as indi­vid­u­als, know­ing young adult lit­er­a­ture and con­nect­ing what I know to make matches.

  6. What strikes me most about this post isn’t how well you’ve artic­u­lat­ed your posi­tion (you have) or how you con­tin­ue to be tuned out by those who say they’re lis­ten­ing (you do). What strikes me is that, while you speak strong­ly and with pas­sion, your words are sea­soned with grace, not judg­ment. Like Dr. King, whose mem­o­ry we cel­e­brate today, may your words trav­el expo­nen­tial­ly fur­ther because of your choice. 

    Thanks, Nik­ki. You’re a class act.

  7. One of my all time favorite books is My Man Blue. I love the strength of the male char­ac­ter, as well as the gen­tle­ness. It is such a REAL book. And now i need to go get Plan­et Mid­dle School. I had four daugh­ters go through mid­dle school, and now I am friends with the prin­ci­pal of a won­der­ful char­ter mid­dle school. I’ve already told her about Plan­et Mid­dle School, and I donat­ed a cou­ple of your oth­er books of yours from my col­lec­tion now that I’ve retired from teach­ing. This post of yours is quite thought-provoking.

  8. Thanks for this, Nic­ki. I am not a writer of col­or, but my books are books of col­or, if you will, and they face the same thing. And it always ran­kles. Review­ers not only men­tion the race, even glow­ing reviews say–or imply–things like “If you like books about Eski­mos, you’ll like this book,” as though this, rather than being human, is a pre­req­ui­site for read­ing one of my books. The old­er I get, the grumpi­er I get about this stuff. I remem­ber fight­ing to erad­i­cate this kind of racism 40 years ago. What in the hell happened?

    Sor­ry. I don’t nor­mal­ly swear. But really.

    Two things give me solace: One, I tell myself that peo­ple bring their own bag­gage to the read­ing of the book and there is noth­ing the writer can do about it. Some­times, when I read a review, I can’t believe the review­er actu­al­ly read the book I wrote. Sure, some­times this is my fault as a writer but some­times it just isn’t.

    And two, kids don’t think like this. Kids read a book and notice where their expe­ri­ence relates or over­laps with that of a char­ac­ter. Nine times out of ten when they come up and ask ques­tions about books, they are colorblind.

    I had a white boy come up to me in New York and all he want­ed to know about the Iñu­pi­aq uncle in my book was, “was he based on a real per­son? I liked him.”

    He just want­ed to know that some­where in the world there was a per­son like that. Nev­er mind the color. 

    I guess that’s why I write for kids.

  9. >Books iden­ti­fied as “black” are fre­quent­ly mar­gin­al­ized in the mar­ket­ing plan. Their appeal is auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered to be nar­row­er than books writ­ten by Cau­casian authors, some­times even when those books are about non-white char­ac­ters. The point-of-view is assumed to be uni­ver­sal, sim­ply by virtue of the white author’s race. In the sell­ers mind, a so-called “black book,” i.e., a book writ­ten by a black author, should be exclu­sive­ly mar­ket­ed to black buy­ers. As such, said books are rarely made avail­able in out­lets locat­ed in pre­dom­i­nant­ly white neighborhoods. <

    This is also backed up by the cov­er choic­es Pub­lish­ers make, as the Bloomsbury/“Magic Under Glass” con­tro­ver­sy Illus­trat­ed. Book­sellers seem to weigh in heav­i­ly on these cov­er deci­sions, all cer­tain that a White girl will not pur­chase a book based on the cov­er show­ing a Black girl (or at least she can’t look TOO black or TOO African Amer­i­can) Publishers/Booksellers need to step into THIS gen­er­a­tion of teens to see this is not the case. As is often the case, an old­er gen­er­a­tion holds back the steps for­ward of the new.
    PB Illus­tra­tion still has it’s hands tied as well. Unless the book is specif­i­cal­ly about the Black cul­ture, we are restrict­ed to HOW DARK we can paint a main char­ac­ter (play­ing to the book­sellers views that the major­i­ty of PB’s are pur­chased by White Woman/Mothers/Grandmothers)
    In a series of books I Illus­trat­ed, I was lim­it­ed to how dark I could paint my main, mul­ti racial, child char­ac­ter. I DID, at least, “get away with” colour­ing her Moth­er brown. Small vic­to­ries, ridicu­lous to even be call­ing them such or hav­ing to think twice about a choice of paint colour and so frus­trat­ing that there is still such plot­ting and plan­ning going on when it comes to books, that chil­dren not con­sumed with such issues, will read. What cen­tu­ry are we in now???

  10. Think about the mes­sage you would like to leave…you may com­ment on what Ms. Grimes post­ed or dis­cuss your own feel­ings on the topic.
    Mrs. M

    1. The racial bar­ri­er between “black” books and “white” books should not have any effect on who gets the chance to read it and where it is avail­able. A book is a book and if it is what peo­ple want to read then it should be read by those peo­ple. I have been read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and the char­ac­ters are main­ly from an African Amer­i­can cul­ture, and if not for the cov­er, as you said, and the pro­ject­ing of skin col­or in words nobody would know, or care, what the char­ac­ters looked like. You have writ­ten a great book that depicts many prob­lems faced by every­day teenage chil­dren. My favorite char­ac­ter hap­pens to be Devon. I love the Tall, Tough, dumb jock who isn’t just that. He has a very intel­lec­tu­al mind that he builds by read­ing, even though his friends and team­mates might not approve of it. In his poem “Black Box” he speaks the truth say­ing that he is mis­judged. If you gan­dered upon a 6 foot tall teenag­er would you expect him to be an hon­or roll stu­dent with straight A’s? No. Just based pure­ly on his height you would think him to be dumb. This hap­pens world wide. If you are going to judge some­one get to know them first. Great Book, Nice ideas Nikki.

  11. I agree 100%. Peo­ple should not be judged on what col­or they are were all on the same plan­et we have to be here on earth for some rea­son. Just because you write books whose main charachters are African Amer­i­can does­nt mean any­thing. It just mean that maybe you grew up around African Amer­i­cans your whole life. Or maybe it means that you dont know what a anyothere races life is like maybe its eas­i­er for diifer­ent races but were all unique. I hon­est­ly dont know what the deal is with peo­ple in dif­fer­ent reaces think­ing thi­er bet­ter then every­one else because all col­ors of human kind have iden­ti­cle issues. I dont get it. I admire you Mrs.Grimes Thanks.

  12. i agree, peo­ple should not be judged in any­way on their race. an authors of dif­fer­ent race should not be put into catagories because of their race, we are all the same an you have a point that you are wor­ried some kids wont get to read your book because of this and it isnt right, im white but to me race does­nt mat­ter not one bit an im read­ing your book “bronx’s mas­quer­ade” an so far i love it an noth­ing has come to my mind about their race an if they should or should­nt do this or that. i think you are an amaz­ing author, and you should­nt be judged on race at all. what you should be judged on is how good is your book, will it attach to your read­ers and make them conect with it, an your book does an amaz­ing job of doing that and those peo­ple that do catagorise your books because of race should read “bronx’s mas­quer­ade” and if they have a heart an mind they will see that kids or any­one should­nt be judged cause of col­or or what ever. my favorite char­ac­ter is tyrone because he seems to be see­ing the true peo­ple an he is chang­ing him­self to.

  13. P.S I have been read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” with my eight grade Eng­lish class and i abso­lut­ly love it my favrit­er charachter is Lupe. She wants a baby to feel loved but then shell have prob­lems in school and im poret­ty sure shell be bul­lied. I think the open mike fri­days is a great idea for kids to open up; After we start­ed read­ing it my Eng­lish teacher Mrs.M start­ed hav­ing open mike fri­days. Only a few kids do it and there poems are okay but noth­ing like the kids in the book. I like how in the book they tell the poems and the poems tell some­thing about them­selves. This book was realy good. Kepp it up. 🙂

  14. I agree with you Nkki, stu­dents should be able to read what they want,even if the author or char­ac­ters are African amer­i­can, white, what ever they, are peo­ple and should not be jugded. My Eglish class is read­ing your book “Braonx mas­quer­ade” and I feel that this book is real.nt talk­ing about some made up sto­ry that is thought up in some­ones head. these peo­ple are very judg­men­tal about looks, I mean its high school, but when they have a chance to open them­selves u pand show every­one what they are like, the real them. If peo­ple got to show them­selves to peo­ple i think that there would be more under­stand­ing in this world. im white and i have His­pan­ic friends, African Amer­i­can friends, i also have dis­abled friends, yet i dont jugde. i think every­one is equal, and should be treat­ed like that.

    Im your book, ” Bonx mas­quer­ade ” my favorite poem is from devonhope,Black Box, I love how he says that peo­ple are “sort­ed” into groups. i think thats how peo­ple are seper­at­ed in todays world.

  15. Thanks for writ­ting this Nik­ki. I don’t write books but I do write poems. Your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”, for me, it does­n’t mat­ter about the race of peo­ple, It is a very good book and it shows the char­ac­ters point of view. If peo­ple rate it on the race of peo­ple, then they should­n’t be allowed to read the book. Peo­ple are who peope are and it should­n’t mat­ter what race they are and judge the mby that. The poems in your book, real­ly tell what the char­ac­ters are feel­ing and what they are going through. The only thing an author can do is what you just did, tell the peo­ple how you feel. The read­ers need to take it into con­sid­er­a­tion that you don’t want peo­ple to rate your books just on the col­or of their skin, you want them to rate it on how good the book is. 

    In “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” my favorite char­ac­ter is Jan­nelle and I love her poem “Mir­ror, Mir­ror” bea­cause I can con­nect with her and see myself in her. It’s amaz­ing how I can actu­al­ly see the car­ac­ters in my head and be in their shoes. I like her because she is strong inside and wants peo­ple to see the real her and not judge her on the outside. 

    If peo­ple only rate it on the col­or, they should­n’t rate it at all. Peo­ple like that dri­ve me up a wall. I agree with you and I hope to read more of your books in the future.

    -Eri­ca P. \m/ <3

  16. in my Eglish class we are read­ing your book “bronx mas­quer­ade” my favorite char­ac­ter is Devon. i find it extreme­ly anoy­ing that peo­ple find it nes­sary to define your pro­tag­o­nists as “black”, its not. my favorite poem is “black box” because feel that goes on all over the world. so far i love your books…and i dont read.

  17. In my Eng­lish class we start­ed read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” the book is great! I find it unnec­es­sary that the peo­ple review­ing your books always men­tion the race of the char­ac­ters. If a revei­w­er is so hung up on the col­or of the char­ac­tors skin that their bar­ley writ­ing about the mean­ing of the book they should­nt be revei­wing the book at all. Espe­cial­ly when usu­al­ly the race of the char­ac­ter is irrel­vent to the book.In con­clu­sion your book is amaz­ing and inspir­ing and i hope in the future review­ers will con­cen­trate more on the mean­ing of the book and less on the col­or of the charactors.

    P.S. my favorite char­ac­ter is Devon and my favorite poem is Devons first poem because I love how hes try­ing to open up to peo­ple even though he was­nt quite there yet he was trying.

  18. I dont believe that peo­ple should not read books because of the race of the author or char­ac­ters. I love the book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I dont feel that its racial in any way. Its show­ing that every­one has a voice and feel­ings and it has a way to be show that through a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. said that every­one is equal no mat­ter what race or reli­gion. I still go by that today and I hope that peo­ple stop judg­ing the book and char­ac­ters and actu­al­ly read it because im sure that they will enjoy it. In the book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”, my favorite poem was the one Glo­ria wrote. I like it because I feel that it is strong­ly word­ed and tells a life­long sto­ry in a cou­ple of well detailed sen­tences. It makes the point clear that she used to be liv­ing life to the fullest but then she lost her free­dom because of her baby so she won­ders if she will ever get her free­dom back again. Nik­ki, im glad you thought out­side the box and write books about a dif­fer­ent race to show peo­ple that a book can still be just a book with a dif­fer­ent race of char­ac­ters then the aver­age book. Kudos to you 😀
    ‑Gen <3

  19. In Eng­lish we are read­ing Bronx Mas­quer­ade and although most of the char­ac­ters are of his­pan­ic or african amer­i­can thats not what review­ers should be focused on. there are no reviews say­ing that Har­ry Pot­ter is white but if he was african amer­i­can i bet there would be com­ments say­ing so, you make an excel­lent point and the review­ers should know that white peo­ple arent the only peo­ple and if theres a book about african amer­i­cans then there is thers noth­ing to it no com­ments about race just there african amer­i­can its no big deal to me per­son­al­ly but to review­ers it seems to be a big deal and i would­n’t be wast­ing my time yelling at them because if there just going to focus on it because of race then its there loss for miss­ing out on all the oth­er things the book has to offer.the book though whether race or not is amaz­ing my favorite char­ac­ter was Ster­ling because he for­gave the bul­ly and hugged him because that was hilar­i­ous and my favorite poem was Raul’s becuase it was say­ing that Puer­tor­i­cans arent all heros or crim­i­nals there nor­mal they live nor­mal lives i think tyrones a lit­tle igno­rant though he thinks he’s the boss i would definete­ly read any of your oth­er books. (P.S: the Eng­lish teacher did­n’t want me say­ing this but you flamed the review­ers so hard by telling them race does­n’t mat­ter PSS: the teacher made me add details)

  20. Nik­ki, In eng­lish class we start­ed the book Bronx Mas­quer­ade. It’s a won­der­ful book and your right your books shoul­nt be “labled”. Your book is your book no mat­ter what peo­ple say about it! You have a way of exprec­ing the charecters.My favorite charecter is Janelle. My favorite poem is “Mir­ror Mir­ror” because janelle writes deep things and stuff about how shes treat­ed and how peo­ple hurt her feel­ing when they pick on her!

  21. Nikki,In Eng­lish class have
    start­ed the book Bronx Masquerade.It is a great book and many peo­ple dont look past the char­ac­ters col­ors because many dont look past the his­to­ry how blacks cant fit in and are mis­tak­en as bad guys not nor­mal citzens there were brought to Amer­i­ca to be slaves. Many have looked past because if not we would­nt have Barack Oba­ma. The char­ac­ters are great most­ly Janelle I like her because she writes deep things about how shes treat­ed and how she takes it. I real­ly like the poem “Mir­ror Mir­ror” it is a great way to see high school many change how they act about some­one when some­one walks into the pic­ture. 🙂 I might read some more of your books. :);)

  22. In my Eng­lish class we start­ed read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. It is a great book. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone because he speaks what­ev­er is on his mind, when­ev­er he wants. My favorite poem is Wes­leys because he likes to rap. It annoys me how all the poe­ple talk about when review­ing are about the race of the char­ac­ters. Just because she stats that they are African Amer­i­can, does­n’t mean that all the reviews have to be about there race. over­all it is a very good book.

  23. I real­ly think them men­tion­ing the race is unnec­es­sary. Im sure if a per­son reads the book they will find out where the peo­ple come from on their own. When review­ers tell the race it can real­ly ruin the sto­ry some­one might not want to read it and it can upset peo­ple of that cer­tain race.I am not african amer­i­can myself but I can kin­da under­stand how this would upset you. Right now I am read­ing Bronx Mas­quer­ade and find it to be a very inter­est­ing sto­ry. I love all the char­ac­ters they all have diffrent per­son­al­i­ties that make the sto­ry fun to read and peo­ple who read it might have a con­nec­tion with a character/characters. My favorite poem would have to be “Black Box” by Devon Hope. It means alot to me because peo­ple are always being put in groups and I don’t like it so I won’t let any­one put me in a box I’m just me. I love your sto­ry and I hope to read more keep doing what you do because your books are great.

  24. I think that many peo­ple say char­ac­ters are black or african amer­i­cans in sum­maries and reviews of sto­ries bea­cuse many peo­ple still are not used to african amer­i­cans and its because the peo­ple who cap­tured and took africans to amer­i­ca as slaves and looked down at them as if they are not human beings they whiped and tor­tured them. Its got­ten bet­ter over the years but peo­ple use labels with­out even know­ing and its because hun­dreds of years of genaer­a­tions have got­ten acus­tom to it. Its definet­ly not fair but usu­aly white peo­ple dont mar­ry peo­ple of african desent and they are usu­aly thought of as dif­fer­ent not real­ly in good or bad ways but just different.People are also very sen­sative of there race about being to light or too dark like in the peo­ple in bronx mascarade.I enjoy a poem that jan­nel wrote because she is not pret­ty on the out­side to hes­elf but on the inside she is smart and beautifull.

  25. I get were you are com­ing from with the fact of why should you need to lit­er­atl­ly tell the peo­ple read­ing your book that your char­ac­ters are african amer­i­can. When J.K. Rowl­ing did­nt say that Har­ry was an eleven year old cau­casian male. Tolkin did­n’t say that Fro­do or Sam were cau­casin trust me i read that in fourth grade it said absoulut­ly noth­ing about that and I’ve read har­ry pot­ter sence i was like sev­en. My eng­lish tech­er pulled out a copy of bronks mas­quer­ade in class we all seem to like it. Im think­ing about buy­ing a copy of it, my favorite poem/rap was tyrones weaslys and steves rap “news at five” hope­ful­ly the tech­er lets me rap it I liked it alot.

  26. My Eng­lish class start­ed read­ing your book Bronks asquerade,and it is a good book. My favorite char­ac­ter isTyron.

  27. A lit­tle while ago my Eng­lish teacher intro­duced the class to the book Bronx Mas­quer­ade. It was a great book and i liked that the book changed point of view every chap­ter yet still kept one main pro­tag­o­nist. I per­son­al­ly like the poem that Jan­nel wrote because it talked about how it did­n’t mat­ter what she looked like on the out­side because what she looks like on the inside is more important.

  28. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing Brox Mas­quer­ade. My favorite char­ac­ter is Janelle, because i think its fun­ny when she com­pared her­self to a coconut:). I think its real­ly stu­pid that peo­ple judge how your char­ac­ters are african amer­i­can. It does­nt mat­ter what race they are as long as its a good book i dont think any­thing else mat­ters as much. I think its cool that youre con­fronting this instead of shrug­ging it off because its a mat­ter that real­ly does both­er alot of peo­ple. Good job on the book!

  29. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book named “bronx mas­quer­ade” so far it is a real­ly good book. I like how every chap­ter is from a dif­fer­ent point of view. And at the end each chap­ter there is a poem that the high school stu­dents do. My favorite char­ac­ter is tyron because he has a unike perse­nal­i­ty and he want to have a future. But he is a lit­tle bossy and thinks he is the king. I like how it all fits togeth­er like a puz­zle when after a cou­ple chap­ters. And it is dif­fer­ent, most books dont have african amer­i­cans but you do. it is what makes your books great. KEEP IT UP !!! 🙂

  30. In Eng­lish we are read­ing The Bronx Mas­quer­ade and i love it because it is so real! The book describes actu­al every­day prob­lems of a mid­dle and high school stu­dent. from fit­ting in and per­son­al prob­lems i think Nik­ki did a great job when she wrote The Bronx Masqurade. The book was a per­fect com­bi­na­tion of poet­ry and a struc­tured nov­el. i would definit­ly read anoth­er one of your books. About the blog above i per­son­aly dont care about the authors eth­nic back­round if the write good i appriciate

  31. In eng­lish class we have been read­ing bronx mas­quer­ade and it is a good book. my favorite char­ac­ter is tyrone because he says any­thing on his mind and i like that. My favorite poem is atten­dance. my favorite line is poi­sion gas does not dis­crim­i­nate because gas does­nt judge looks it kills every­one in its path. based on your com­ment i dont thing its right what peo­ple say about african amer­i­cans. there the same type of peo­ple as white americans.

  32. In Eng­lish class, we are read­ing Bronx Mas­quer­ade. I agree that peo­ple should not men­tion the race of the char­ac­ters in your books, because they don’t men­tion white char­ac­ters in dif­fer­ent book reviews. This book real­ly shows how you nev­er know what some­one is like before you get to know them, so you should­n’t “judge a book by its cov­er”. I like how Devon is the most pop­u­lar jock in school, but under­neath he’s actu­al­ly some­one who likes to read and learn, and he’s start­ing not to care about what any­one else thinks of him. My favorite poem from the book is “Mes­sage to a Friend” by Glo­ria. She talks about how sweet and inno­cent she used to be, then she went out and made one mis­take and it turned into a baby being born. She does­n’t regret that she had her baby, but she wish­es she would’ve known what it was like so she could fin­ish school and be suc­cess­ful before hav­ing a child. The firend she’s refer­ring to in the poem is the girl she used to be, the per­son she wish­es she still was. She wants to be able to go out with her friends, and have no wor­ries or respon­si­bil­i­ties. Her friend, Lupe, thinks that she wants to be like Glo­ria, but Glo­ria is try­ing to show her she does­n’t want that, and that she should wait.
    I think you do a real­ly good job as an author, and you should look past the dis­crim­i­na­tion and just let your writ­ing be how­ev­er you want it. (:

  33. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” I find it unnec­es­sary that the peo­ple men­tion the race of the characters.The read­ers should focus on the mean­ing of the book and not the col­ors of the char­ac­ters. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon,I like his first poem because he start­ed to open up to peo­ple about who he real­ly is, not just a jock.

  34. In eng­lish we are read­ing the “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and it is a good book my favorite char­ac­ter is devon because he does­nt want to be labled as a dumb jock and wants to be smart and i aggree with you no one should be judged because of their race every­one no mat­ter what col­or should be able to enjoy a book.

  35. Our 8th grade Eng­lish class is read­ing Bronx Masqer­ade. I think it real­ly relates to mid­dle school and high school stu­dents. There are plen­ty of oth­er books writ­ten about African Amer­i­cans, but I don’t get why they are pick­ing out yours? My fave­orite char­ac­ter is Janelle, I don’t know why, but I love her personality.

  36. In eng­lish class we are read­ing your book ”Bronx Mas­quer­ade” i think the book is very good and its so real! My favorite poem is Long Live langston by Wes­ley Boone but my favorite char­ac­ter is devon bea­cuse hes a jock but he likes to read and hes real­ly smart and not afraid to hide it.

  37. In my Eng­lish class, we start­ed read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade.” So far, im not a big fan about your book. It’s just very hard to fol­low for me, switch­ing char­ac­tors every chap­ter, But thats just me…im sure oth­er peo­ple enjoy your book very much. Tyrone real­ly bugs me, but i think that he plays a big part in the book. With­out him there would be no bad guy. Also, about the whole dis­crim­i­na­tion thing you blogged about… I feel like its not a big deal that they are say­ing that. Most peo­ple just think auto­mat­i­cal­ly that char­ac­tors are white. So the review­ers put in that they are black. I belive that there is na racism at all.

  38. I know where you come from cause it dont mat­ter what race you are it is who you are and wht you do.I dont think its rite for peo­ple to get picked on because of there race.In eng­lish class we are read­ing “BRonx” “Mas­quer­ade” my favorite charec­tor is Devon Hope because he tells the truth about how he has to hide his real self because peo­ple think he is some­one that he is not.You can show your real self not your fake self because every one will think that your some­one that your not.

  39. Nik­ki,
    Your blog is real­ly true. I agree with it. I am read­ing “bronx mas­quer­ade” and its a cool sto­ry bro. Also my favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone, but Glo­ria has by far my favorite poem writ­ten. Most­ly because “Mes­sage to a Friend” real­ly spoke to me.
    ~Bree~
    P.S. I real­ly think im going to read more of your books, bro 😀

  40. The book I’m cur­rent­ly read­ing in Eng­lish class Is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. The book describes peo­ple who like to speak there mind at “Open Mike Fri­day” and write ori­g­anal poems that describe who the per­son is on the inside rather than out. Your “black book” inspired me to not judge peo­ple so eas­i­ly and get to know the per­son rather than tak­ing a glance at them and say­ing some­thing that could hurt them severe­ly on the inside. My favorite char­ac­ter that opens up the most would be Janelle. Her poenm called “Mir­ror, Mir­ror” was try­ing to give some of the peo­ple she knows a hint to stop judg­ing her because of her weight and start judg­ing not only her but oth­er peo­ple in the school to judge who they are on the inside if there beau­ti­ful or not. The book isn’t just some­thing kids write for fun or assigned for home­work, it’s a chance to have your time to tell them what you are or who you are as a per­son not a speck of dust wait­ing to be some­thing to some­one. I enjoy the book a lot, thank you for writ­ing a book I can call inspiring.

  41. In my my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book it’s hard to fol­low with ever chap­ter start­ing with a new car­ac­ter. You are putting a label on your own race putting them in that type of sit­u­a­tion. Hav­ing them be abused and preg­nent at a young age. Say­ing they are arfraid of being smart. But the blacks in amer­i­ca can make the same out of there lifes that any­one else can. Just like you made a good life for your­self just like any­one else can do the same. It’s there choice.

  42. I think you make a real­ly good point. Peo­ple should­n’t have to point out that the char­ac­ters are African Amer­i­can. It should­n’t mat­ter if the char­ac­ters are black, white, what­ev­er they are. It’s the actu­al sto­ry that mat­ters. I think the book is great. I like how real it is and how accu­rate it is to an actu­al high school. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyron because he is very blunt and always speaks his mind. My favorite poem is “If” by Dion­dra Jordan.

  43. A lit­tle while ago my Eng­lish teacher intro­duced my class to the book Bronx mas­quer­ade. I think it is an inter­est­ing choice of char­ac­ters. It is very wide­ly spread with all the races and I think it is com­plete­ly right no one should care about what skin col­or peo­ple are. We may be dif­fer­ent on the out­side but on the inside every­one is close to being iden­ti­cal. Every­one wants to be (cool) and cared about like Tyrone; he thinks he has noth­ing any future only a past for him­self all because one thing hap­pened to him. I am=sorry to say this but life goes on you can’t stop it not even slow it down it push­es you to the ground and expects you to move on with the pain of fail­ure but it only repeats its job push you fall and over and over nev­er stop­ping its job is to nev­er let up keep you going through a moti­va­tor and a killer nev­er to be stopped but to be encour­aged with its evil scheme no one cares only if its then but life goes on. Tim­o­thy B.

  44. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Masqurade” i think the book is hard to under­stand because the peo­ple keep switch­ing evey chap­ter and i for­get what had hap­pened last chap­ter they were in (i have short term mem­o­ry loss). Even though i think your book is bad it is still good to oth­er people.i dont know why you think it is bad that peo­ple keep call­ing your car­ac­ters “black”, who cares if they think or call them black it dos­nt real­ly mat­ter. You dont have to think that it is such a bad thing it is your book do what ever you want just dont be sterotyp­i­cal to your own kind.

    P.S. i dont have a favroite car­ac­ter but if i did it would be tyrone, i lkie how he judges the poems. 

    GARET. R

  45. In eng­lish class we are read­ing a book call Bronx Mas­quer­ade. My favorite char­ac­ter is Lupe Algar­in because she express­es how she feels about being lone­ly. I don’t think she should have a kid at this age because she needs to be able to enjoy her teenage years.

  46. In eng­lish class we are read­ing Bronx Mas­quer­ade. My favorite char­ac­ter Janelle becuase she relates to peo­ple in our school because peo­ple always call peo­ple names just by there looks. Butt they do real­ly know then in the inside. I dont think peo­ple should judge oth­ers by the way they look. They should acclu­al­ly get to know them before they judge.

  47. No–not just you, Nikki.
    K.T. Horn­ing has thought deeply about this for a long time; not sur­pris­ing that she gets this.
    And as a Cau­ca­sion author, I want to say you’re right that when my books fea­ture African Amer­i­can char­ac­ters, that doesn’t seem to be men­tioned in the reviews. Though when I meet read­ers, espe­cial­ly read­ers of KEESHA’S HOUSE, they some­times express sur­prise that I’m not black, and ask ques­tions about the race of the characters.
    I wish this wasn’t such an effort, and hope it all gets eas­i­er. I want your books to be wide­ly read

  48. In my eng­lish class we have been read­ing a awe­some book called ” Bronx Mas­quer­ade” this book is about a bunch of kids that go to this high school and have somoe type of prob­lem like have­ing a baby, or because a jokoe and lov­ing to read books, or hate­ing the col­or of your skin this is what some of the kids at this high they deal with every­day and their eng­lish teacher Mr.Ward asked his class if any­one has any poet­ery to read and if they did they would be able to share on Fri­day. The rea­son I am share­ing this all with you is because I think it is a good way for peo­ple to express their fellings and show their emo­tion with out any­one know­ing who they are talk­ing to. my favorite char­ac­ter is Devon I like because he is a great bas­ket­ball play­er and all his friends thinik that their is noth­ing in his head when in fact he loves to read and is a very smart per­son and try­ing to hide from all his friends

  49. In my eng­lish class we are read­ing the book Bronx Mas­quer­ade and it is fan­tas­tic because it is so real.The book describes the real actu­al every­day prob­lems faced by teens every­ware whether in mid­dle school or high school they all face prob­lems that hap­pen everyday.I love how in the book there is a dif­fer­ent point of view between all of the stu­dents. my favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone because he is not afraid to express what is on his mind.Also he wants to be a hip hop star but he is afraid that peo­ple will not like his music.My favorite line in his poem is Its me Tyrone up here all alone because his father died recently.

  50. I dont real­ly think that the revei­w­ers are try­ing ot be racist,but rather they list the detail because most peo­ple auto­mat­i­cal­ly assume char­ac­ters are white…like in the book “HOLES” with zero,but i 110 per­cent agree that race is being clas­si­fied in books and the cau­cas­sions are being deprived of learn­ing about black authors.Looking into local libraries or pub­lic resource sites things are cer­tain­ly clas­si­fied by what skin tone the author is.lLabels are wrong and should­nt be used,but i guess like in the poem “Box­es” peo­ple real­ly are being put into lit­tle box­es and not being clas­si­fied by the emo­tion or strent­gth of the book,and one day maybe peo­ple will actu­al­ly unite and try to make things right like devon the sup­pos­ed­ly “dumb jock”.
    over all “bornkx mas­quer­ade” was a fan­tas­tic and heart tug­ging book that any race should read
    …my favorite char­ac­ter was Chankara,because she reminds me of my moth­er in more ways than one,i swear i almost broke out in tears read­ing the poem “bruised love” because it just brings back so much memories.that shall always and for­ev­er be my favoritepo­em and frankly this book should go down in history!!<33
    ‑Tamarow S.

  51. I agree with you, no one should be judged by the col­or, or her­itage. Same goes for books. If a book has a dif­fer­ent cul­ture in it, it should­n’t be dis­crim­i­nat­ed. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. Very good book. *applaus­es silent­ly in head* I love how they have Open Mike to express them­selves. My favorite chac­ter is Tyrone because he was judg­ing peo­ple and he did­n’t have a dream, but now that Open Mike start­ed he actu­al­ly hears what peo­ple think and he actu­al­ly wants to change himself.

  52. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing “Bronx mas­quer­ade.” It is a very good book, its real­ly inter­est­ing. I feel it is wrong for peo­ple to iden­ti­fy a char­ac­ter as “black.” The way you set up the book is great, how we see the point of view from each char­ac­ter every chap­ter. Although it is some­what unre­al­is­tic for where we live. There isn’t much fear of being killed every day or being scared of show­ing our intel­li­gence. Some have to wor­ry about some­things like preg­nan­cy. I know thats how it is for some but for oth­ers it is hard to relate to it if we don’t go through the same thing. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon, i like Devon because he real­izes through­out the sto­ry it does­nt mat­ter what peo­ple think of him. If is friends arent his friends after they find out there smart then there only hold­ing him back. When he stood up for him­self and told Mike he was­nt read­ing for class. That he was read­ing for him­self because thats what he loves. My favorite poem is Zor­ro by Raul, this is my favorite poem because i feel it flows the best and i relate to it the best of all the poems so far.

  53. I think that if most of the char­ac­ters in a book are not the same race as you, that should not stop you from read­ing it. That’s racist and just plain sil­ly. After all, you are right about your books when you say they are uni­ver­sal­ly appeal­ing, Nik­ki, espe­cial­ly Bronx Mas­quer­ade. My Eng­lish class is read­ing that and I think I am the one who likes it best. I am intrest­ed in the sto­ry and the poet­ry is fan­tas­tic. My favorite char­ac­ter from Bronx Mas­quer­ade is Devon Hope because he is the one who is most like me. Both of us are very tall, and while I am not a bas­ket­ball play­er, I am quite ath­let­ic. I am on the Oswego Lak­ers Swim Club. We each also have a pret­ty good intrest in read­ing. My favorite poem from the book is Zor­ro by Raul Ramirez. It is a good exam­ple of just how mind-blow­ing all the poet­ry is. I like how Raul men­tions the Span­ish super­hero to express that he is nei­ther good nor bad.

  54. By the way, my favorite poem is “Inside” by Janelle Bat­tle because it’s on the inside that counts and I can relate to her by peo­ple being rude and not look­ing all the way through the skin and see­ing peo­ple for who they real­ly are.

  55. I agree with you on the fact that col­or should­nt mat­ter when it comes to writ­ing… or any­thing real­ly. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing the book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I real­ly like it. I like how Tyrone has his own oppin­ion on every­ones poem because it gives me an idea on what some peo­ple may be think­ing. My favorite poem though I think would be Chankara’s peom called “Bruised Love”. I like it because she is stand­ing up for herself.

  56. In Eng­lish class, my oth­er class­mates and I are read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. Focussing on what the sto­ry is about is what peo­ple should be doing instead of judg­ing the book by what col­or or race the char­ac­ters are.My favorite char­ac­ter is Ster­ling S. Hugh­es because I like the way he han­dled those bul­lies. I have nev­er heard of any­one doing that before. A close friend of mine told me to kill bul­lies with kind­ness. I love your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. My favorite poem is “Mes­sage to a friend” By the char­ac­ter Glo­ria Mar­tinez. Her poem is my favorite because I love all the poet­ic terms used in her poem. I also like how time was com­pared to a per­fume bottle.

  57. I agree with you, I think that race should­n’t make a dif­fer­ence. My favorite poem in your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” is “Zor­ro” because it talks about a super hero, and that is cool! My favorite charachter in the book is Tyrone, because he speaks the thuth, and does­n’t sug­ar coat it.

  58. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing ”Bronx Mas­quer­ade” it’s a great book so far, my favorite charecter is Janelle because the way she described her­self as a cocanut, she has a cir­cu­lar shell, a dense out­side and sweet in the middle

  59. Nik­ki I agree. Books should­n’t be judged by the race. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing the “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. The book is real­ly good.I like the char­ac­ters Glo­ria because she is try­ing to live a life but can’t because she has a baby and does­n’t have any free­dom. I can con­nect to Jenelle because some peo­ple get picked on like that. I like the poem “Mes­sage to a Friend” because she’s writ­ing to her self about how she was free before her baby came but she still loves her tooth­less, squirm­ing bun­dle of joy. This is my favorite because its say­ing how a baby can effect your life and they also take you free­dom away. Babies also need alot of love.

  60. I agree that review­ers should­n’t requier that books writ­ten by African Amer­i­cans have to have some­thing say­ing that. It dosent mat­ter who wrote it, a book is a book. In my eng­lish class we are read­ing the “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and i am lov­ing this book. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone. I think its awsome that he start­ed the Open Mike in his class and finnal­ly has some­thing to do. My favorite poem is “Atten­dance” by Tyrone. I like this one because it talks about the prob­lems they all have in the city. I love the line “ter­ror­ism is here” it tells that in a lit­tle city there can be alot of danger.

  61. I agree that peo­ple fell the need to point out they hap­pen to be African-Amer­i­can. In any oth­er book if they were cacau­sion yuo dont point it out. You also made them have pro­ploms teens every­day all aroun the world face. Devon labeld as a noth­ing more but a “jock”, but is smart and afri­ad to show oth­ers he read. Janelle has the issue of being a lit­tle plum so peo­ple bul­ly her. Lup­wants a kid to feel loved, Tyrones afri­ad of dieing. My favorite char­ac­ter is Ster­ling. he is my favorite bea­cuse he has to deal with oth­ers think­ing hes crazy and bullys pick­ing on him for his religon. You have a great teen vioce.

  62. I agree with you 100%. There is no rea­son that your books should be judged on if there are African Amer­i­can char­ac­ters. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your nov­el “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. I absolute love it! It is fonom­i­nal. Per­son­al­ly my favorite char­ac­ter is Dion­dra Jor­dan because I can relate to her peo­ple think I’m just smart but I’m real­ly good at draw­ing. My favorite poem so far is “Inside” by Janelle Bat­tle because I feel sim­i­lar to how you have her feel in the nov­el. Keep writ­ing com­pelling nov­els. Thank you! Kim­ber­ly R 😉 🙂

  63. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing the “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” I find it unnec­es­sary that peo­ple put the “African Amer­i­cans” label on your books but, you are also putting a label on your char­ac­ters. They can be any­thing they want to be but, you make them preg­nant and being beat­en by their boyfriends and they’re scared to be themselves.
    My favorite char­ac­ter is Janelle because her prob­lems relate to peo­ple in my school, judg­ing you about what you look like and how you dress. No one gives any­one a chance to see how they real­ly are.
    My favorite poem is Devon’s “Black Box” because he does­n’t want to be put into a box as a “Dumb Jock
    ” because he’s not a dumb jock at all he enjoys read­ing but is afraid to tell anyone.

  64. In my Eng­lish Class we are read­ing the book Bronx Mas­quer­ade. I like the book alot and it has a dif­fer­ent style to the set­up. While I can under­stand why you are frus­trat­ed, I don’t think it’s racist to include the pro­tag­o­nists’ race in the book. Not sell­ing them in places pop­u­lat­ed by a dif­fer­ent race is wrong, how­ev­er, they may feel the need to men­tion the race of the pro­ta­gion­ist in those ares, not because they might not choose the book because of it, but bea­cause they are gen­uine­ly itnter­est­ed. My favorite charecter is Ster­ling because he tries so hard to stay inno­cent, even when he’s sur­round­ed by those are far from it. My favorite poem is Zor­ro because it explains not putting peo­ple in box­es per se, but instead com­bin­ing that thought with that of Devon’s, about not being what peo­ple expect you to be. My only com­plaint about your book is that some­times the char­ac­ters’ emo­tions are extremed; i don­t’t know any­one in my grade who is as good or as bad as you’re’s. They’re always in between.

  65. Dear Nik­ki, I tot­taly agree!.…. Books should­n’t be judged by who wrote them or what race the char­ac­ters are.…. In my eng­lish class we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. So far I absolute­ly love your book! The char­ac­ters seem so real.… They face prob­lems that teenagers expe­ri­ence every­day.… My favorite char­ac­ter is Leslie. I can con­nect with Leslie because every­one expects her to be good at sports just because she is tall. Just like her I have zero cor­di­na­tion. My favorite poem from the book is “Mes­sage to a friend!”. This is my favorite poem because it real­ly catch­es my eye. I love when she says “Untill the day she stopped, caught the tooth­less squ­uirm­ing bun­dle and grav­i­ty kicked in. She real­izes that a baby is hard to take care of and you lose your free “teenag­er time”. Since we have read your book your teacher lets us have an open mike fri­day to read our own poems 🙂

  66. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing the “Bronx Masquerade”.I agree with some of the ear­li­er posts that say you are label­ing as char­ac­ters “preg­nant young, being afri­ad of being killed every­day, not wor­ry­ing about their own future, and being beat­en by their boyfriends” and I am not that only African Amer­i­cans face these prob­lems every­day but I think the way you label them makes it seem like that. I do agree with you say­ing that review­ers and crit­ics should not call them “Black” when they talk about the char­ac­ter see­ing that if they review a Cau­ca­sain’s book they do not label the char­ac­ters as “White”. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone most of the time because I feel that he is telling the sto­ry but, I also do not like it when he acts like a BOSS and he acts like he is in con­trol of every­thing. I do also think your book is kin­da con­fus­ing to me because it keeps on switch­ing back and forth between charaters which makes it hard­er for me to read. My favorite peom is Atten­dance because I like how it shows of what he feels on dai­ly life and how he lives his life. It also shows why he dosen’t wor­ry about his future.

  67. I agree! Your books should not be judged by oth­er peo­ple just because there are Afer­i­can Amer­i­can char­ac­ters. In my Eng­lish im read­ing the “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. My favorite char­ac­ter in the sto­ry is Dion­dra Jor­dan because peo­ple see her just as a tall girl instead of an artist. My favorite poem is inside by Janelle Bat­tle because i feel sim­i­lar to how she feels in the novel.

  68. Dear nik­ki we are read­ing one of your books in my
    Eng­lish class. It is The Bronx Mass­ca­rade and i must say the book is real­ly a phe­nom­i­nal one. The book explains many issues that peo­ple can relate to. I total­ly agree with you on how you say that your books should­n’t be judged on race. It does­nt mat­ter what the book is about if it is writ­ten with african amer­i­can char­ac­ters orange char­ac­ters with pur­ple pol­ka dots or what­ev­er, books are great either way. I am not real­ly a read­er but your books are real­ly inter­estin to me and am going to have to read some more of your books. My favorite char­ac­ter from Bronx mass­ca­rade is Devon Hope. The rea­son is because my name is Devon and because peo­ple with the name devon are awe­some also he is not afraid to show the oth­er side of him because he isn’t afraid to be him­self thats what I think and by the way i think you are inspir­ing and many 

    peo­ple will look up to you. Dont stop writ­ing books bro 🙂

    Keep up the good work

  69. Right now i’m in my Eng­lish class writ­ting this let­ter to you with hope that I will fin­ish all your books, pub­lished and soon to be writ­ten. Present­ly I am read­ing your book, “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. Through­out the book I seem to be more and more moved by each line like a beau­ti­ful wave in the ocean plucks shells off from the shore. So far my favorite char­ac­ter is Tan­isha because of how her poem tells how her her­itage effects her and how she feels mis­un­der­stood becaause of her skin. I myself am not of African descent but I am col­ored. To me being judged on your skin tone isn’t just hurt­ing the peo­ple they say it to, its also the per­son who has it in them­selves to dis­crim­i­nate oth­ers. Although it’s wrong to seg­re­gate peo­ple some kids can’t hepl it because they are raised that way. After read­ing your book you’ve inspired me to do a lit­tle writ­ing myself someday.

  70. First I must say that I com­plet­ly agree with you, it goes­n’t mat­ter what col­or you are to enjoy these books. speak­ing of books my 8th grade Eng­lish class is read­ing The Bronx Mas­quer­ade. My favorit charater has to be Ster­ling S. Hugh­es, the way he deals with bul­lies is strange but bril­lent. Ihave to ask what was your insper­a­tion for him? Aside from that my favorit poem is black box. My favorit line is “Just don’t put me in one, son belive me I won’t fit”.

  71. I agree total­ly with you nik­ki i beliv­eve that african amer­i­cans should not be dis­crim­i­nat­ed againts in book revei­ws or any­where in the world. i have been read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” it is pret­ty cool so far, my favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because he is a jock like me. my favorite poem is “Black Box” because i feel it conects to a lot of peo­ple every­where in the world. the line “im aller­gic to box­es” is a amaz­ing line show­ing he does not want to be fake he wants to be free and be him­self that why i love that poem so much…

    🙂 🙂

  72. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing the book “Bronx Maquerade”.I agree with you because African Amer­i­cans should not be dis­crim­i­nat­ed for being char­ac­ters in books. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone because he is not afraid to express how he feels about every­ones poems. The peom “Black Box” is my favorite because Devon does­n’t care what peo­ple think about him read­ing books even though he is a jock.

  73. I per­son­aly think that the auther is com­pleat­ly cor­erct and the rea­son why is that i beleve that no one should be seg­ri­gat­ed by the col­or of there skin. my favorit char­ic­tor is tyrone because i can kind of see wher heas com­ing from but my favorit poem was by janelle it is inside. my favorit line is “your loss is some­one elses gain for i am coconut.”

  74. I believe in what she is say­ing how they don’t real­ly have to go by race as to what your read­ing about. Depend­ing upon your her­itage it does­nt mat­ter what you read,Caucasians can read about the Jew­ish, African Amer­i­cans can read about Cau­casians. Racism does­n’t exist with­in the titling of books, thats just obsured. My favorite char­ac­ter would have to be Tyrone,he’s kin­da like me in a way as to the fact he does­nt care what he says or if it gets him in trou­ble. Girls will like him for being like that as long as it does­n’t involve him. My favorite line would have to be from Chankara though,she says “She tiotoed in,late and limping,her cheek raw as red brown meat.” This line reminds me of my mom in a way because no mat­ter what time your up she is too. There would be no way that I ever could sneak out of the house. Bruis­es, what can I say besides they hurt, men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. If my boyfriend ever hit me he would­n’t live to see tomor­row. My da is very pro­tec­tive over me about guys and so if I told him, or he saw my boyfriend would nev­er hear/see me ever again. So far I am enjoy­ing your book despite my fond hatred of books and read­ing, so I give you a thumbs up for that! 😀

  75. In my eng­lish class, (Along with every­one up above XD) we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade.” It is a great book, and I sug­gest it to any­one who just wants to sit down with a good book. :3

    I agree with Nik­ki. Peo­ple should­nt judge peo­ple by col­or. Do peo­ple judge labadors on thi­er fur col­or? No. So why should we?

    My favorite per­son from “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” is probaly Leslie Lucas. I feel I can rlate with her, with her mom dieing. Except for with me, its my dad mov­ing out of the house. I always wish that when I go home, my dad would bring me into a big hug and ask hiw my day was. But I cant. With her, she fears being alone. I have to agree with her. Same it the poem, Com­mon Ground. I fear that pool of tears, in the cen­ter of alone­ness. My best freind is my life perserv­er, my buoy. And I love her for that. <3

  76. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Masqurade”. I agree with her because African amer­i­cans should not be dis­crim­i­nat­ed. This book is not racist at all. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because he is a “jocky” But he does still like to read. I think the author made Devon in the Nov­el because its say­ing that just because your a sports “jocky” does­nt mean you cant like oth­er things like read­ing or school or any oth­er thing. My favorite poem in the nov­el is “Black Box” because it is say­ing Dont let peo­ple bug you just because you like to read and dont hide it.

  77. I agree with what the author is say­ing. I under­stand that peo­ple should­n’t stick out because their a dif­fer­ent race or come from some where that isn’t near here. In a way, many peo­ple are point­ing out dif­fer­ent races and thair not even real­iz­ing it. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because I love how unusu­al but under­stand­able this chap­ter is, when peo­ple label you because your good at some­thing but real­ly you have a whole oth­er aspect on life. His poem ‘Black Box’ would be my favorite poem. ‘My body is the only box I belong in.’ When it comes to this part of the poem I real­ly get what he’s try­ing to say. he’s say­ing that peo­ple can call you what­ev­er they like and it sticks. You bar­ley even con­trol over that, even if don’t know a lot about you. So they have no right to label you unless they are you, because only you know exact­ly who are and what you have planned for the rest of your life.

  78. I think that you are cor­rect in say­ing that charecters race is not nes­sas­ary as long as it is of no impor­tance to the book.I don’t think that it isn’t racist by men­tion­ing it, but i just think it’s extra un-need­ed info. I also believe that your books should be mer­ket­ed to a wide vari­ety of read­ers, not deter­mined by race. Cur­rent­ly our Eng­lish class is read­ing your book Bronx Mas­quer­ade. My favorite charec­tor is Devon because he does­n’t want to be the per­son every­one thinks he is. he is extreme­ly ath­let­ic, but thats not where his heart is. He wants to be smart and exceed expec­ta­tions. I also like his poem Black Box because he spreads the mes­sage that books should­n’t be judged by their cov­ers, just like yours.

  79. I agree with what she has to say about how her books should not be labled just like how peo­ple should not be labled because it does not mat­ter about skin col­or it is about what kind of per­son you are on the inside. My favorite char­ac­ter is tyrone because he has the biggest part. my favorite poem so far is Bronx Masquearde. also i have to say that most of the that com­ment­ed on your book are prob­ly not mean­ing to sound racest but that one of the thing peo­ple nor­mal­ly do, it does not mat­ter what skin col­or peo­ple have, that is just one of the things that nor­mal­ly sticks out to peo­ple. peo­ple will do it with any col­or of skin.

  80. Well wher­ev­er we go in the world there is bound to be racial prob­lems, which makes me mad. I com­plete­ly agree with you! Why should it mat­ter what you look like? We all have the same heart, lungs, hands, feet. Inside we are all alike. Peo­ple should­n’t judge you how the way you look before they know you. Why should it mat­ter if your black, white, Mex­i­can, Ital­ian or any­thing! It gets me upset hear­ing about things like that. My favorite char­ac­ter in “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” is Janelle because she knows she’s beau­ti­ful inside and wants oth­er peo­ple to see it. I con­nect to that because I wish peo­ple would just stop car­ing about looks and see the true beau­ty inside. Not a lot of peo­ple see that and I wish they could. My favorite poem in the book is “If” by Diaon­dra because it’s so calm and I can just imag­ine her sculpt­ing the moutains and draw­ing the sea in ink. It’s so pow­er­ful and calm at the same time. All of the poems in the book so far are very deep and they are all wonderful

  81. Recent­ly in my Eng­lish class we’ve start­ed read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. So far I’m impressed with your book, ma’am. I must say it’s quite a hoot! I like how you did­n’t stick with one race or eth­nic­i­ty, and the fact that you have put in mul­ti­ple races and eth­nic­i­ties makes the whole sto­ry-line kin­da “spicy”. But I’m not try­ing to be like the oth­er review­ers and make a whole scene about the race/ethnicity thing. I’m just stat­ing my opin­ion. I’d have to say my favorite char­ac­ter so far is Tan­isha Scott, because I find it absolute­ly inter­est­ing that every­body is so hung up over her hair. And don’t get me start­ed on the poem “Black Box”, I was very intrigued with Devon’s poem. It was amaz­ing to know that some­one feels the way I feel when peo­ple label me as “tough” because real­ly, on the inside, I’m as soft as a bun­ny’s tail. Once again, I’m impressed. Keep up the good work, Nikki.

  82. I agree you alot nik­ki. its not fair how if a black per­son writes a book that automadi­clly only black peo­ple can read your books. i actu­al­ly love your books. my Eng­lish class is read­ing your book the Bronx Mas­quer­ade. i love that book. MY fave­orite char­ter is Jan­lle Bat­tle. she isa my favor­tie because i relate to her because im a big girl myslef. im always get­ing picked on at any school i go and stinks. My favorite poem from that book is Bruised Love. I like it because i also relate to it.I used to be abused when i was lit­tle. But every­time i read a book of yours it makes me feel a whole lot better.

  83. I total­ly agree with you Nik­ki!! Peo­ple should­n’t be judge on your books. African Amer­i­cans, are just like nor­mal peo­ple, and should­n’t be judged. My 8th grade Eng­lish class is read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”, and I’m real­ly lov­ing it.:) My favorite char­ac­ter would have to be Chankara, and how she does’nt want to end up like her sis­ter and let guys walk all of her. My Favorite poem is For the Record By:Tanisha Scott. My favor­tie line is, My heart beats like a talk­ing drum.

  84. In Eng­lish class, we have start­ed read­ing your book, “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I have to say I like the way the book is set up, with all the char­ac­ters speak­ing at dif­fer­ent times and I think you are cor­rect about your blog on how the race of the char­ac­ters should­n’t mat­ter in the mean­ing of the book. Race does­n’t change the sto­ry at all, and if you don’t come right out and say that race mat­ters, nobody should care. I know that’s not what le I read this nov­el. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because I like the way he wants to make him­self heard that he is more than a jock. My favorite poem is Devon’s “Black Box” because he is say­ing that he does­n’t believe that peo­ple should be judged on how they are on the out­side, and that peo­ple should take it more by who they are on the inside. He does­n’t care that peo­ple think he should just be a jock, he is his own person

  85. I agree with her because books shouldent say the race of main cahar­ic­tor on black puplish­er’s books only. Judg­ing by col­er of skin is roung. We dont do it to ani­mals why should we do it to oth­er humans.

    My faverite char­icter from the “Bronx masqurade” is devon hope because he was afraid to show him­self. But lat­er he changes his mind and shows it to the team.

    My faverite poem is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. I like it because he is express­ing him self and is talk­ing to him self. My favret line is “My name is surprise.

  86. I agree. Col­or should not mat­ter. It should not mat­ter when it comes to books or any­thing. Kids should be able to read what they want to read no mat­ter what as long as they are get­ting some­thing from it. In my 8th grade eng­lish class we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon. He is my favorite because when Mr. Ward start­ed Open Mike, he start­ed to real­ize that every­one has their own prob­lems and aren’t per­fect. He took the risk to be picked on by oth­er jocks­by show­ing them that he read because he want­ed to. Not because he had to. My favorite poem is “Black Box”. No mat­ter where you go in the world, peo­ple are being seg­re­gat­ed not because of their race, but because of what they like to do. Like if some­one liked learn­ing, they would be clas­si­fied as nerds, or geeks. Peo­ple don’t take time to see what is on the inside, only the outside.

  87. in my eng­lish class were read­ing “bronx masqurade” i agree with you peo­ple should­nt be judged by the col­or of there skin. my favorite char­ac­ter is devon because hes not just some jock that dosent care about any­thing but bas­ket ball. he also love to read but he dosent want peo­ple to find out. my favorite poem is bruised love. because i have friends that can relate to the poem.

  88. I agree with what you has to say about how your books should not be labled just like how peo­ple should not be labled. Race doesn’t change the sto­ry at all, it does­n’t mat­ter what col­or your skin is, or what race you are. What mat­ters is how a per­son is on the inside. What race a char­ac­ther is, should­n’t change the way a per­son views a book. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Masqurade”. I don’t like how it’s set up, chang­ing charachters every chap­ter, it gets to hard to fol­low. But I have to say you go into great detail on how hard some of these kids lifes are, throught wor­ry­ing about dieing, and rais­ing a child. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon, I like Devon because he real­izes through­out the sto­ry it does­nt mat­ter what peo­ple think of him. If peo­ple don’t like the way he is, why should he lis­ten to them? It took alot of guts to tell Mike that he was­n’t read­ing for class, because he was afraid of what he would say at first. My favorite poem was Dev­in’s poem black box. It real­ly shows that peo­ple don’t like to be labeled some­thing, like tough guy, or tough jock just because they play a sport. Peo­ple are dif­fer­ent, smart peo­ple can be good at sports, and tall peo­ple, like Dion­dra, aren’t always good at basketball.

  89. One of my best friends is South African. Every time I tell some­one that he’s black and stereo­typ­ing isn’t fair to any­one. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because I play sports as well and like him i love read­ing. My favorite poem is “Black Box” because no one likes being stereo­typed as Jock or Geek.

  90. Nik­ki, My class is read­ing your book “The Bronx Mas­caraed” in school. And I agree with what your say­ing about how your books should not be judged because its about African Amer­i­can char­ac­ters there is no rea­son for peo­ple to do that and its just wrong. My favorite char­ac­ter is Mr. ward because of how easy going and cool he is. it seems as though all the stu­dents in his class tru­ly like him and respect him though he is a teacher. I think my favorite poem is black box because it express­es what hap­pens to a lot of peo­ple. I don’t know why but peo­ple seem to like to label peo­ple things such as trash scum dork geek and a lot of oth­er hurt­ful things. your book is real­ly good and i cant wait to get my hands on anoth­er nov­el by you.

  91. Nik­ki, I love your book Bronx Mas­quer­ade that we’re read­ing on Eng­lish! I entire­ly agree on not jud­gin peo­ple on there cul­ture or looks. My favorite char­ac­ter in the book is Devon Hope. He used to hide behind him­slef not show­ing who he real­ly was. Because peo­ple awlays thought he was a bas­ket­ball jock but real­ly he just loves to read. I can’t stand it when peo­ple judge me for some­one i real­ly am not. Includ­ing that i also love his poem. It seems that many peo­ple put oth­ers in lit­tle box­es that dont real­ly describe them. Peo­ple just assumed that devon was only an ath­lete. But real­ly he wants to be free and read poet­ry with out being picked on! I tot­tal­ly love your book and want to get my hands on anoth­er one of your peices!

  92. We are read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” in eng­lish class cur­rent­ly. I love your book and want to read anoth­er one of them soon! My favorite char­ac­ter in your book is Devon Hope because he wants to come out of his shell and be who he real­ly is. Devon is called the “Bas­ket­ball Jock” but he real­ly just loves to read. I also love his poem “Black Box” because it tru­ly express­es who he real­ly is. He tells his eng­lish class that he hates how peo­ple judge you and shove you inot a lit­tle box that they think you are. It total­ly describes me and how i hate being judged!

  93. My eng­lish class has start­ed read­ing your book. I think it is real­ly good and i agree with you 100 per­cent. They should­nt have to men­tion that your char­ac­ters are african amer­i­can. it is unnec­se­cary. my favorite char­ac­ter is devon because he sounds real­ly cool. My favorite poem is black box because it is the most relatable.

  94. Nik­ki, Nomat­ter how many dif­fer­ent books you write about dif­fer­ent races, peo­ple will still make fun of your books and writ­ing. Peo­ple have found some­thing to blame… The books that you write have many African Amer­i­can her­ritage or cul­ture in them. Peo­ple just decide to use that to make fun of the race. We are cur­rent­ly read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” in our Eng­lish class. This book is probaly one of my most favorite books! My favorite car­ac­ter is Devon Hope because in the book he says that peo­ple do not know the real him, his per­son­al­i­ty is more than just being a sports finat­ic, he also does many oter things except for sports. My favor­tie poem in the book is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” by Devon Hope. In the poem it says ” Dont call me Jump Shot, My name is Sur­prise”. This means that he does more than just play bas­ket­ball, he can write poems, or even write a good book… Like you Do!

  95. nik­ki, i like your poem i agree with you com­plete­ly. my favo­rate charachter in bronx mas­quer­ade is Raul, he has a real­ly cool name and i think it is cool that he likes to paint the way he made is poem in the shape of a Z was very unique and so far nobody ealse in the book has done it yet. GREAT BOOK

  96. On your thoughts, Nik­ki, I ful­ly agree with you, I have yet to under­stand why African Amer­i­cans are dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. What does it mat­ter if your char­ac­ters are heav­i­ly African Amer­i­can, for one peo­ple seem to think that African Aner­i­cans are scape­goats for gang vio­lence and drug abuse. Not many seem to agree that most African Amer­i­cans are respon­si­ble for gang vio­lence. I, for one love Bronx Mas­quer­ade, most books seem to not grab my atten­tion as well as this book, sur­pris­ing­ly I have got­ten in to poet­ry which is usu­al­ly my least favorite sec­tion of Eng­lish. My favorite char­ac­ter is Glo­ria because of how it hits home , but thats a lit­tle bit per­son­al. She real­izes that. “She bought in to Hol­ly­woods lie.” For what she thought would. ” Lead her to dream places.” She real­ized hav­ing a baby would not. “Fill all her emp­ty places.” Now she real­ized she had to stop and, all these poems are from Glo­ri­a’s poem. ” Mes­sage to a Friend.” on page forty-three of Bronx Mas­quer­ade. I like this char­ac­ter because she real­izes her mis­take of hav­ing Angel, but she realizes.“She did­n’t even know what soy milk was a year ago.” I admire her tak­ing care of her baby after the father walked out on her.

  97. I think you are right it should not mat­ter the race of the writ­ter or the read­er! My favorite charecter is Tyrone because he speaks his mind, he does­nt lie about his opin­ion so he is like me.Ex. “Raulis on the money.You got­ta make your own rules, Jack.Thats the real 411.Forget who white folks think you are, ’cause they aint got a clue.” My favorite poem is “Inside” by Janelle Bat­tle, I think its cool how she com­pares her­self to a coconut. Tough on out­side weak and sweet on the inside.

  98. My eng­lish class has been read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and i dont think peo­ple should have to judge on how they are col­ored in the book, all that is impor­tant is that they actu­al­ly like the book. If they have a prob­lem with the col­or they have then they could just stop read­ing the book. My favorite char­ac­ter in this book was Tyrone. Tyrone was my favorite char­ac­ter because he always has some­thing to say about every­bodys poems show­ing that he can relate or show that he actu­al­ly lis­tens to how peo­ple are. when tyrone talks about their poems he talks about how after he feels bad for some of the peo­ple in the book. that shows he cares. My favorite poem that was read in this book was the poem “inside” by Janelle Bat­tle. in that poem it says “feel you poke me with the sharp tip of your boot­ed words.” i like that because it relates to most of the stu­dents in my school. peo­ple dont real­ize how much words hurt peo­ple. Jenelle also talks about being a “coconut” as say­ing that she needs a hard out­side to make it so nobody can break her down, but at the same time she is sweet on the inside. but nobody real­izes it because every­body is to busy judg­ing her on the out­side. i loved this book!

  99. In my eng­lish class we are read­ing the book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I com­plete­ly agree with you on the whole race thing.….…..Why does it mat­ter what race the char­ac­ters are. If the mean­ing of the book isn’t ras­cist its self then peo­ple should not judge you for putting peo­ple of your own race in your own writ­ing. It’s your writ­ing no one elses so write as you feel and express your­self on paper.So far my favorite char­ac­ter in your book is Lupe, her and I have so much in com­mon. I just want to feel loved but one thing I dis­agree with is try­ing to have a baby to feel loved. My favorite poem in “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” is “Mes­sage to a friend” because it explains Glo­ri­a’s life before hav­ing her child. How much fun she had, it explains how much hard work she has had to put in. It makes you won­der about the out­comes of your actions.….…

  100. I agree with what you say about books being juged by race, some peole are just mad at the world and want to take oth­er peo­ple down with them, keep doing waht you are doing i love your book ‚“Bronx mas­quer­ade”, i think its won­der­ful. i love Try­one bea­cuse of how much of a boss he thinks he is and he can be fun­ny at some points, i like the quote,“take two poems and call me in the morn­ing.” because he is refer­ing to the poems as med­i­cine to the heart, like a way to be free from all the pain and hate.

  101. Well Nikki,i think that your per­spec­tive of your writ­ing is unique in many ways. your choice on wei­ther to write on “black” or “white” char­ac­ters most have been hard to chose bea­cause of all the feed­back of your peers.My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon hope because i can relate to him in ways that it says in the story.In the sto­ry “Bronx mas­quer­ade” the part with devon it says that “the law is be cool,be tough,play ball,and use books as weight lift­ing-not read­ing” refer­ing that jocks arnt sup­posed to be smart haha not in my case im a bas­ket­ball play­er and have more then a 95 aver­age and it keeps going up.I know not all jocks are the smartest but there not the dumb­est either.My favorite poem is “Bronx Maque­r­ade” because it shows how jocks around the world that are smart and like to read be free and not con­fined in a dark cor­ner of secret and denial.

  102. Hi Nik­ki, i am an 8th grade stu­dent and my eng­lish class is read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. I agree that it should­n’t mat­ter what race you are or what type of skin col­or you have. Some of my very good friends are African Amer­i­can and theyu are very nice peo­ple. It should­n’t mat­ter what is on the out­side. It should only mat­ter what is on the inside which is a per­son just like any­one else that some­times has real­ly good times and some­times is sad just like any nor­mal human being. My favorite char­ac­ter in your book is Devon Hope. I like him because he likes to play sports and so do I. His prob­lem is that he is a jock but he he likes to read. His friends think that he is going to the gym when he is real­ly sneak­ing into the library to read. Peo­ple don’t accept jocks read­ing and they think that they should use books for lift­ing not for read­ing. He should be able to be who he real­ly wants to be not who oth­ers want him to be. it should be the same way in real life also. My favorite poem is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” by Devon Hope becauise it tells who he real­ly is. He is telling peo­ple who he real­ly is not who oth­ers want him to be.

  103. I agree with your thoughts because judg­ing by races is wrong. In my eglish class we are read­ing “Brox Mas­quer­ade.” My favorite char­ac­ter is Dion­dra Jor­dan because she isn’t the ath­let­ic kind, but she has height. She wants to be an artist but every­one sug­gests bas­ket­ball. She keeps to her heart though and does what she wants. My favorite poem is “Com­mon Ground” by
    Leslie Lucas. I like this poem because it express­es a lot in dif­fer­ent words, dif­fer­ent ways. It’s iter­est­ing on how her metaphores make you real­ly think about things and what she’s say­ing. In con­clu­sion, I real­ly like your work and can’t wait to read the rest of your book! ~Me 🙂

  104. So far my favorite char­ac­ter is Devon Hope, which is the B‑Ball/jock who likes to read. But his friends think that jocks should­nt read books like it says in the book “The law is be cool, be tough, play ball, and use books for weight lift­ing not for reading.”

  105. I’m pick­ing up with what you’re putting down. It Isn’t fair that poe­ple are judg­ing you because of your race. It does­n’t mat­ter if your char­ac­ters are col­ored or not. What mat­ters is how poe­ple are on the inside not the out. A char­ac­ters race should­n’t change a per­sons point of veiw on a sto­ry. In eng­lish class we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” it is absolute­ly amaz­ing. I think it’s cool that they have “Open Mike Fri­days.” My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon. I like that he’s into bas­ket­ball, but that he has anoth­er side to him than just sports. In Devon’s poem “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” he says “theres more to devon than just jump shot and rim.” I like how he’s say­ing that there more to him then what every­one sees, that behind his tough, ath­let­ic side, there is a sweet side to him. I like that he wants peo­ple to know who he real­ly is then try­ing to hide it. This book is great i can’t wait to read more.

  106. In my eng­lish class we are cur­rent­ly read­ing one of your famous books call ” Bronx Mas­cuer­ade.” We are not real­ly far in the book but i think it is a great book. I think the raci­est prob­lem is sil­ly we are all still peo­ple. We are all pret­ty much alike we just have dif­fer­ent skin color.
    In the book Bronx Mas­cu­rade i liked the poem that Chankara wrote “Bruised Love” no one real­ly deserves to be beat expe­cial­ly by the per­son they love. I also liked it because it tells us about the per­son and what she expects from guys and not just to be hit by the person.
    In oth­er words Nik­ki i love your book i can’t wait to read more. Your an amaz­ing author, thank you for writing.

  107. My eng­lish class start­ed read­ing your book. I think that they should­n’t judge a book & put on the cov­er “African Amer­i­cans” It does­n’t mateter what the race is & should­nt. MY favorite chrac­ter is Tyrone because hs speaks his mind. My favorite poem is the black box because it explains a lot & i like it.

  108. I agree with what she has to say about how her books should not be labled just like how peo­ple should not be labled because it does not mat­ter about skin col­or it is about what kind of per­son you make your­self be and how you act. My favorite char­ac­ter is tyrone because he has the biggest part in the poem.

  109. I dont believe that peo­ple should not read books because of the race of the author or characters.Martin Luther King Jr. said that every­one is equal no mat­ter what race or reli­gion. I still go by that today and I hope that peo­ple stop judg­ing the book and char­ac­ters and actu­al­ly read it because im sure that they will enjoy it.

  110. I total­ly agree with Nik­ki, race in a nov­el does­n’t mat­ter the only thing that mat­ters is the sto­ry line and the conflict/resolution. So what if you’re African Amer­i­can, Asian, His­pan­ic, or Cau­casian. Race does­n’t matter.

  111. This is a great way to put it! It’s very inspi­ra­tional!!! 🙂 It teach­es a good les­son and tells peo­ple to be proud no mat­ter what col­or of skin you have, or what you look like. It tells you to be hap­py to be you­self! You’re telling us don’t change your self to make peo­ple hap­py. Also, in my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” it’s a very good book. My favorite char­ac­ter is Chankara. She was strong even though her boyfriend hit her. Nik­ki grimes is a amaz­ing author. 🙂

  112. I absolute­ly, pos­i­tive­ly agree with you on that Nik­ki! Race should­n’t mat­ter no mat­ter the sub­ject you are bas­ing your(book, arti­cle ect.)on. So what if you are a dif­fer­ent race? In my eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and so far, it is an amaz­ing nd inspi­ra­tional book. My favorite char­ac­ter in your book is Chankara. She has been through and is going through a lot to deal with. She is being strong and pulling through even though her boyfriend beats her. I beleive that if she is tough enough to be able to pull through some­thing as bad as that, I can too. I love your voice in your book and I can’t beleive that I’m say­ing this but,I am real­ly excit­ed to read the rest of your book an this is com­plete­ly true!! 🙂

  113. i think that what any­one thinks is just there own thoughts. I like the char­ac­ter Tyrone Bit­ting because he may not be the bright­est cray­on in the box but he thinks he is the leader of his class and i like that.like his peom when he was takig atten­dance like a teacher. My favorite is bruised love because she can’t stand that her sis­ter is with some­one that mis­se’s treats her.”” i bruise eas­i­ly is one of her lines she sprin­kles like sugar.’

  114. My favorite thing about the book is how it include all of the lifes of a teenag­er and, all of there prob­lems in to poems. Such as Tyrone his fear is of being alone and, on Open Mike Fri­days he will read out his feeling,and prob­lems through his poem. One text based detail to show that the teen Tyrone’s fear is being alone “It’s me, Tyrone, up here all alone.” My favorite poem is “Inside” By Janelle Bat­tle because in her poem she will talk about her self as a coconut and, con­nect how she is like one. one way she says she is a coconut is “Your loss is some­one elses gain for I am coconut, and the heart of me is sweet­er than you know.”

  115. In my eglish class we are readig your book called “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. i agree with you on the whole race thing. I beleve that peo­ple sould­nt be acist against char­ac­ters. My favort char­ac­ter is Tyrone. I like him because he speeks whats on his mind. My favort thing that he says that i like is “shool ain’t noth­in’but a joke. And anoth­er oe i like is “my moms dont want to hear that, but it wer­ent for wes­ly and my oth­er home­ys i wouldt eve be here aiight?” I loe how he is hon­est about his edu­ca­tion. My favort poem is “Bruised love” by Chankara Troupe. the eason i like this is is because i love how she decribes her face as raw as red brow meat. It tells us that her face is real bad..

  116. Nobody should be judged by their race. We’re all the same any­way. Were just dif­fer­ent skin col­or. Why does it even mat­ter? In Eng­lish Class we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and i like it so far. My favorite char­ac­ter in this book is Glo­ria. Glo­ria wants her life back to nor­mal with­out hav­ing to take care of a kid. Glo­ria says “once you have a kid, every­thing changes. If i could go back, do things over… but i can’t. No sense dream­ing about it.” This means she would rather go back in her time and nev­er had Angel. Angel ruined her life. She has no free­dom at all to do any­thing with her friends. My favorite poem is “Bruised Love” by Chankara Troupf. I like this poem becuase she says “I caus­ght a quick glance in the chilly glow of the refridger­a­tor before she had a chance to hide the lat­est sou­venir her boyfriend gave her.” A bruise.

  117. I to believe that the col­or of your skin should not mat­ter to any­one or any­thing. We are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” in my eng­lish class and my favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone. I like Tyrone because he under­stands his class mates and agrees with them. He also sup­ports them. He always has a pos­i­tive atti­tude towards his class­mates work. My favorite poem is “atten­dance”. I like this poem because he states his fear clear­ly using his class­mates and Mr.Ward.

  118. I am an eighth grade stu­dent and in Eng­lish we are read­ing Bronx Mas­caraed. You have an out­stand­ing point that peo­ple should not be judged on their race or skin col­or. Like the peo­ple in your book that read poems our class has start­ed doing the same. i read a poem on the first Fri­day so far being the only boy to do so. i did a poem on peo­ple not judg­ing me on what I do and what I like to wear. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon Hopes. i like how he likes to read but dis­like that he hides it.(just as I used to hid my lik­ing for things peo­ple made fun of me for). After he was caught lik­ing to read by Janelle he start­ed to think he should not hide his lik­ing for read­ing. Just because he is a jock and read­ing was a thing that no jock does in Devon’s school. Like him I decid­ed to stop hid­ing the true me and do and wear what I want. My favorite poem is by Janelle Bat­tle. She explains on how that she was picked on her for being a bit chub­by. But she says that “I am a coconut and the heart of me is sweet­er.” in my point of view she is say­ing how “it’s what’s on the inside that counts” or that “you nev­er judge a book by its cov­er.” Thank you and I can’t wait to read the rest of the book!!!

  119. I have recent­ly post­ed a para­graph and titled the name as itchy bob and my real nme is noah wal­lis so mrs. melol­ing give me full cred­it please.

  120. i agree with what you are say­ing i dont think the col­or of you skin should mat­ter about what your writ­ing about, i real­ly like your book bronx masqureade. my favorite char­ac­tor is devon hope because i think its weird that he hides from who he real­ly is. being smart isnt any­where near bad it is a good thing. it is also a good thing to be ath­let­ic. i real­ly like jan­nelles poem i like the descrip­tion she uses to herself.i like how she says she might not be pret­ty on the out­side but is amaz­ing on the inside.

  121. I agree with your thoughts, race should not affect the way peo­ple think of each oth­er. Every­one should be treat­ed equal­ly. I enjoyed your book so far, I can real­ly relate to Devon. I like him because he is smart and has tal­ent in sports. My favorite poem in the book has been “Atten­dance” it’s more of a rap and that why I like it. I can’t wait to read the upcom­ing poems in your book!

  122. After all that I have read I could­n’t agree with you more. I wish that we didn’t have to point out the obvi­ous in oth­er peo­ple because they know and you make it worse by telling them in a way they don’t want to accept it. My favorite char­ac­ter is Jump Shot, Devon Hope. He’s my favorite because even though he will get made fun of for read­ing in the library he still does it and being a bas­ket­ball it will be bad if he gets caught. “I tell them I’m head­ing for the gym to meet coach and work on my layup. Then once they’re out the door, I cut upstairs to the library sneak a read.” he has to use a dis­guise. My favorite poem in the whole book would be the one that Raul did. The way his for­mat was it made him get his point across that he like to paint. “I lunge on a cue, save the damsel in distress.”

  123. I agree with you that peo­ple should not be judged by their race ever. In my eng­lish class, we are cur­rent­ly read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I think that it is a very inspir­ing book. My favorite char­ac­ter is Chankara because, her sis­ter was abused in past real­tion­ships that she was in, and Chankara does not want to turn out like her sis­ter did. My favorite poem in the book is Mir­ror, Mir­ror by Janelle beca­sue she tells how she feels on the inside.

  124. To Nik­ki, I find the prob­lem you have very annoy­ing as well, I find it unnec­es­sary for the review­ers to men­tion your char­ac­ters as African-Amer­i­can. Like the oth­er com­menters above I am read­ing your book Bronx Mas­quer­ade as well. My favorite char­ac­ter so far is Tyrone. I like him the most because he not only com­ments and reviews on oth­ers poems but he also tells about life and the prob­lems we face today as well, such as when he reads his poem Atten­dance and says “Ter­ror­ism is here lurk­ing at the bus stop” and when he talks about past prob­lems when he says “Can’t hop on the sub­way with­out thinkin’ of Tokyo- we all know poi­son gas does not dis­crim­i­nate” On the same top­ic my favorite poem in your book is prob­a­bly Bronx Mas­quer­ade. I like this one the most because it talks about prob­lems me and sev­er­al of my friends face today (being in jr. high) like when Devon says “I woke up this morn­ing exhaust­ed from hid­ing the me of me” I love this quote the most because I can relate to it. Thank you for read­ing my com­ment I hope you enjoyed it.

  125. I agree pick­en o peo­ple for there race. o boady cares about ay boady else besides ther selves. my favorite charecter is tyroe because he tells whats on his mind and he is laid back. and he is hoest.his fear is of being alone and, on Open Mike Fri­days he will read out his feeling,and prob­lems through his poem.All his poems are about his fears about dieing.
    peo­ple should­nt get picked on because of there race. or dis­crim­i­nat­ed. it hurts peo­ple when peo­ple picke on them

  126. I com­plet­ly agree on the sit­u­a­tion. It is not fair that you have to state that your char­ac­ters are col­ored. But on anoth­er note, I think Tyrone is my favorite char­ac­ter in “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” I have a good vibe about him. Atten­dance is my fav poem,I like how he see’s him as a leader but under­stands the dan­gers in being one. “We are all here”. He knows the real world, he knows what is out there. That is why i like him.

  127. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing a book called “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I total­ly agree with you Nik­ki because when you say it not about the race. My favorite char­ac­ter in this book is Tyrone, and Tyrone is dying and of get­ting beat my his dad if/when his father couch­es him and his mother.my favorite poem is Tyrone’s poem. Tyrone’s poem is about what he feels and if you real­ly get I to the boo then it shows that its very inspiring:)

  128. in my eng­lish class were read­ing “bronx masqurade” i agree with you peo­ple should­nt be judged by the col­or of there skin.

  129. in my eng­lish class we’re read­ing “bronx mas­quer­ade” i agree with you peo­ple shouldn’t
    be judged by the col­or of there skin. All peo­ple should be treat­ed equally.
    It doesn’t mat­ter about the race of peo­ple. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone because
    he speaks what­ev­er is on his mind, when­ev­er he wants.:)

  130. My eng­lish class is read­ing the book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I feel this arti­cal has much to do with the plac­ing of this book. I Agreee with you com­plete­ly Nik­ki, The race of a real or fic­tion­al per­son should not decide if peo­ple will look into there life, or read the book. In The book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” My favorite char­ac­ter is, Tan­isha Scott. I Like her because I know what it’s like for peo­ple to want some­thing of your’s real bad and it can get annoy­ing. I also under­stand her about the being proud about a race that was ruined a long time ago. Unlike my favorite char­ac­ter my favorite pome is Janelle’s poem “Mir­ror, Mir­ror” I like this poem because, I under­stand what it’s like to want to be some­one else than what you see in the mirror.

  131. My eng­lish is read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and i feel that race should­n’t have any­thing to do with who reads a cer­tain book or not. My favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone because he isn’t afraid to speak the truth or what’s on his mind. He is a very open character(in my opin­ion). My favorite poem is “atten­dance”. This is my favorite because he talks about his fear using his Mr. Ward and his classmates.

  132. This post was inspi­ra­tional and some­thing to live by and tak­en seriosly. Your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” is very good, well done. my favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone because there is not much to read about him and hes a fun char­ac­ter and I llike the poem “Black Box” by Devon Hope

  133. In eng­lish we are read­ing the book called “Bronx Masquerade”.I like how in the book it changes from char­ac­tor to char­ac­tor.. i agree with nik­ki, its not fair that you have to state that your char­ac­tors are col­ored. My favorite char­ac­tor in the book is devon because its weird that he hides who he real­ly is, and i like that he has anoth­er side to him than just sports..

  134. in my eng­lish class we are read­ing “bronx masqurade” and my favorite char­ac­tor is tyrone becausen he thinks he can rap. the mes­sage that this book sends is about being your self. if oth­er peo­ple dont like you for who you are then they can deal with it. the race dosent real­ly mat­ter to the read­er as long as the mes­sage gets though.

  135. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book, Bronx Mas­quer­ade I am real­ly enjoy­ing the book so far. My favorite char­ac­ter is Glo­ria Mar­tinez. Even though she had a baby at a young age, she still came back to fin­ish school. That takes a lot of nerve. She isn’t a par­ty girl any­more now that she had the baby but she could be. She could be some irre­spon­si­ble par­ent who leaves her kid every night to go to clubs. But, she stays at home. My favorite poem is Bruised Love by Chankara Troupe. Her poem has so much truth to it. Her sis­ter gets beat u on all the time but Chankara won’t have it She will not let any­one do that to her. Chankara uses detailed describ­ing words like “…is one of the lies she sprin­kles like sug­ar.” That is a great sim­i­le. Also, anoth­er sim­i­le is “…her cheek raw as red-brow meat” mean­ing her sis­ter had been beat­en. I think that is my favorite poem because she shows a lot of heart in it. That’s what got to me. All of the heart.

  136. I total­ly agree with every­thing you’ve said. I don’t think race should be a fac­tor when find­ing a book. An author should be well known for their books, not their race. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book, “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. I have to say that this is prob­a­bly one of my favorite books. My favorite char­ac­ter is Ster­ling. As a pastor’s son, I under­stand what Ster­ling goes through when every­one expects him to be per­fect. I also real­ly admire how he sticks to his faith, espe­cial­ly when being bul­lied by the oth­er kids. My favorite poem in the book so far would have to be “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” by Devon Hope. Although not many peo­ple deal with hav­ing to hide their love for poet­ry instead of bas­ket­ball, I feel that most teens do wear a ‘mask’. I think this poem is rel­e­vant to many teen lives.

  137. In my 8th grade Eng­lish class we are read­ing you book Bronx mas­quer­ade so far it is an amaz­ing book. It is one of my all-time favorites. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because of every­thing he is hid­ing. I loved his poem the black box it shows us all the cliques we form are just imag­i­nary bar­ri­ers that we make to keep oth­ers out.

  138. You make a great point Nik­ki. I have nev­er under­stood why peo­ple would treat some­one dif­fer­ent­ly because of their skin col­or, or any­thing else. I have been read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” in my eng­lish class. I’ll admit that at first I did­n’t real­ly want to read a book with so much poet­ry, but now I find myself hav­ing trou­ble putting it down. My favorite char­ac­ter in the book is Tyrone. He’s nev­er afraid to say what he thinks. My favorite poem is “Zor­ro” by Raul Ramirez. The last few sen­tences explain that we can all help each oth­er. When I get done with this book, I want to read some of your oth­er books.(:

  139. I agree with every­thing you men­tioned about race and the book, it is a very good point. My favorite char­ac­ter in the book is Tyrone. This is because he start­ed off with that “I don’t care” atti­tude and thought every­thing was a joke. I can relate to some of the things he says as such. My favorite peom in the book is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” by Devon Hope.I like this poem because it is about some­one who is prac­ti­cal­ly hid­ing behind a mask because of what he wants peo­ple to think of him when real­ly he is some­thing else. I know peo­ple who are just like that and this poem I feel could help them out.

  140. Right now in my eng­lish class we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” which is a good book, my favorite char­ac­ter is tyrone, because he thinks he can rap when he real­ly cant.My Favoroite poem in this book is ‘open mike brown hands. You, macho soledad the secret i whis­per in the night you fill your eyes with me, like a mir­ror i see myself in. our twin hearts beat like con­gas the rythm churn­ing our blood to sal­sa. our brown hands entwine beneath moon­shine clasp­ing all the lovewe’ll ever need” and it does­nt mat­ter if your black white orange pur­ple or yel­low your still the same to every­one else just as long as the messege gets through to the readers.
    And you should make anoth­er book with the char­ac­ter try­one in it!:)

  141. I am cur­rent­ly read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” in my eng­lish class. And yes, why does it mat­ter? I hate it when peo­ple dis­crim­i­nate oth­ers if they are a dif­fer­ent race or have a dif­fer­ent reli­gion. That’s just the way they are, and they’re still peo­ple. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon since I play bas­ket­ball also and I love to read. My favorite poem is “Zor­ro” by Raul Ramirez because it talks about help­ing out others.

  142. we are read­ing bronx mas­quer­ade in are eng­lish class i think the book good so far . i dont care about what peo­plse col­or is were all the same species human i have many dif­fer­ent col­ored freinds i like them all . my favorite chareter in the book is tyron becouse hes cool my favorite poem is tyrons

  143. My eng­lish class is read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” it is a very good book so far.My favorite is Devon Hope and my favorite poem is bronx masquerae.

  144. I think you are right on the parts that i under­stood , by that i mean i enjoyed read­ing what your opin­ion was but it was so long ‚i could not under­stand evry thing you said . But what i did under­stand ‚i agree completly.I believe that the most inter­est­ing char­ac­tor in your book,( Bronx Mas­quer­ade) is Tyrone Bit­tings for hisat­ti­tude towards peo­ples poems like when he said “Raul is on the mon­ey, you got­ta make your own rules, jack” on line 23. just the same that I like tyrone, i Also like the per­son­al feel­ings that are shown in each per­sons poems. My favorite poem is most like­ly ( bronx mas­quer­ade) by Devon Hope because it reminds me so much ofwhat me and my friends are like here at school. For exam­ple, Devon “said I stand here con­fid­ing theres more to Devon thanjump shots and rim” I liked this because most of the peo­ple on the court are not just play­ers all of them try very hard at edu­ca­tion as well.

  145. My eng­lish class is read­ing your book bronx mas­quer­ade my favi­rote poem is black box because you should­nt judge a book by its cover

  146. In my Eng­lish class we are read­ing your book named “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” so far it is a real­ly good book i think. I like how every chap­ter is from a dif­fer­ent point of view. And at the end each chap­ter there is a poem that the high school stu­dents do. My favorite char­ac­ter is tyron because he has a unike perse­nal­i­ty and he wants to have a future.I like him because he thinks he all bad but and thinks he can con­trol every­one in the sto­ry!! my favorite poem in the book is fromde­von hope on pg.32 because its a poem about hid­ing ur true self and wak­ing up every morn­ing exhaust­ed from hid­ding the you in you.

  147. Nik­ki you make a good point. Just because some­one has a dif­fer­ent skin col­or then you, does­n’t mean they are any less equal to you. My 8th grade eng­lish class is read­ing your book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and so far I like it a lot. My favorite char­ac­ter from your book is Devon Hope. Devon loves read­ing but every­one knows him for being good at bas­ket­ball. He hides that he loves read­ing from every­one. He sneaks into the library when no one is around. In his poem “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” he says he is tired of hid­ing his true self, who he real­ly is. His poem is my favorite so far, he explains how every­one is hid­ing their true selves from every­one else. No one wants to be who they reall are. They just want to be what every­one thinks is cool, or what they are known for.

  148. BEFRORE ANYONE READS THIS I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY SPELLIG MISTAKES LIKE THESSE ONE­SI’d like to say that I agee with your state­mants and that they have valid rea­son. I belive that the race of the author affects, the race of the char­ac­ters in the book. Also that an author of a cer­tain race may seem to appear to write books specif­i­cal­ly focus­ing on the race of that author so you could say that that book is indeed “lim­it­ed” (alhough it should­n’t be) to that race.

    Now in my 8th grade eng­lish class we be read­ing your book “The Bronx Masqurade” and I find its struc­ture dif­fer­ent from any oth­er book I’ve read. Each char­ac­ter has his/her own say for each “chap­ter” uhm I’d like to say that my favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone, Because he seems like hes a real rap­per, and he is think­ing about life in long term. My favorite poem how­ev­er is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” it seems like the real basis of what the book is based on.

  149. Nik­ki you are right. I don’t under­stand the whole point in the race dis­crim­i­na­tion that goes around. I don’t think that there’s any point in it. It shouldn’t mat­ter what race you are we all live on the same plan­et so deal with it. Any­ways my Eng­lish class is read­ing one of your books “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and it’s very inspi­ra­tional to me. My favorite char­ac­ter would have to be Devon Hope because I can relate to him the most. I am scared to show who I real­ly am just like he is. I’m just ter­ri­fied that many will judge me for the real me so I hide in a dis­guise. But my favorite poem would have to be Devon Hope’s “Bronx Mas­quer­ade”. Your sto­ry is so inspirational.

  150. Well said Nik­ki. In life there is always going to be peo­ple who judge you based on your looks. In my eng­lish class we are read­ing your book “Bronx Maque­r­ade”, it is a real­ly good book. I love how all the char­ac­ters tell every­one what they want in life and what prob­lems they are fac­ing. It‘s hard to tell peo­ple things like that some­times. My favorite char­ac­ter in your book is Chankara because in her life she has seen her sis­ter get beat­en by her boyfreind. Chankara has decid­ed she does not want to live her life like that and she is going to try and give her self the best. My favorite poem in your book is ‘bruised love’ my Chankara because it tells about the sit­u­a­tion she is in while watch­ing her sis­ter get beat­en. Chankara said she has known the truth since ten, when her sis­ter lies to her Chankara and her both know it was her sis­ters boyfriend. After my class is done read­ing this book I want to read anoth­er one of your books!

  151. Nik­ki I agree 100% peo­ple should’nt pre­judge a book depend­ing on the skin col­or. A book is a book no mat­ter the authors skin col­or. In my 8th grade class we are read­ing the “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and I’m enjoy­ing I very much. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because he kind of what the book is about,people hid­ing from their true selfs. My favorite peom is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” by Devon because he comes out with his true feel­ing and tell peo­ple who he real­ly is and don’t for­get it.

  152. You’re right race should­n’t matter,the col­or of your skin should­n’t deter­mine any­thing about you or what you do. In Eng­lish we are read­ing “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and it is pret­ty good. My favorite char­ac­ter it Tyrone but, my favorite poem so far is Devon’s poem “Bronx Masquerade”.

  153. Dear Nik­ki,
    I think your book is great. it is not fair that peo­ple are judged because of their skin col­or. As some peo­ple might say nev­er judge a book by its cov­er. Nobody should be judge at all by their skin.I think you are so right. in my eng­lish class we are read­ing “Bronx Masqueade”. I nev­er liked poet­ry, but I think it is cool how you have made poems that rep­re­sent the char­ac­ter. My favorite char­ac­ter is Janelle.I like how she is real­iz­ing about how when peo­ple are read­ing their own poems, they are talk­ing about their own per­son­al prob­lems. My favorite poem is Brusied Love by Chankara Troupe. Her poem is my favorite because it just rep­re­sents her so much. I was so suprised that she was so brave to share it on open mike Fri­days. thanks for right­ing such a good book.

  154. I strong­ly agree on every­thing that you said because im in 8th grade eng­lish class right now and were read­ing a book that you wrote called “bronx mascer­ade”. It is a great book so far. my favorite char­ac­ter is devon hope because he is hid­ing some­thing from every­one because he does­nt want them to that he loves read­ing, so he hides his fear from peo­ple by sneak­ing into the libray when he can to sneak in a read. that is just one char­ac­ter in the book that I like. I love his poem “black box” because it shows us that all the prob­lems we form are just inag­i­nary bar­ri­ers that we make to keep oth­ers out. I will always agree on what you say.

  155. I agree with you that race should not affect what you read or write. I am read­ing “Bronx mas­quer­ade” in my Eng­lish class and my favorite char­ac­ter is Tyrone. I like his com­ments after every poem.

  156. I com­plete­ly under­stand how your feel­ing as if peo­ple “Label” Books!Just because some­one who is a dif­fer­ent col­or or their from some­where else oth­er than where we’re from should­n’t matter.Pick up the book , sit down , get com­fort­able and give the book a try! I am read­ing the Book “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and it com­plete­ly con­nects to what your say­ing. In this book my favorite char­ac­ter is Tan­isha. She keeps her head held high and faces her prob­lems. She gets picked on and some­times guys and girls like/ are jeal­ous of her. She has green eyes and light skin. She has per­fect hair and once she was think­ing about putting in brown con­tact lens­es to get a lit­tle ” Ugli­er”. My favorite poem by her is ..„ ” It’s the blood that tells :slaves black as Mis­sis­sp­pi mud ring the trunk of my fam­i­ly tree. They speak through me black as they want to be. The slaver’s white drop could­n’t stop the spread of African cells. They’re bred in the bone, past the slick hair , the too ‑fair skin. So don’t tell me I can’t fit in. My heart beats like a talk­ing drum , my mom hums to Bessie just like yours , the broth­ers in my dreams. ” The poem is called ” For The Record” I like this because shes talk­ing about how she is like every­one else and she should be treat­ed the same.

  157. Read­ing through this blog, it was with great inter­est. Usu­al­ly, stu­dents are forced to read these things, and then told to do the work, but for this, I did­n’t quite mind. I think no mat­ter how hard we try, there will always be peo­ple we think of African Amer­i­can’s as “not equal” but that nev­er means they are right. I stick my nose in your book, “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” and have a hard time tak­ing my nose out of it. I nev­er did though start read­ing this book and first think you were an African Amer­i­can author, and now that I know, I don’t think of you as an author, or as a per­son every dif­fer­ent. You were a nat­ur­al writer. I can put myself in your char­ac­ters shoes’ and pre­tend to be them, even though I am white. I think African Amer­i­can authors should actu­al­ly be rec­og­nized more, because it’s nice to think that instead of assum­ing every­one is white, which white peo­ple tend to think, we are look­ing at the world in a whole new per­spec­tive. I would nev­er think that you should stop writ­ing. I’m glad you love who you are, every­one should be! Devon Hope is my favorite char­ac­ter in your book, “Bronx Mas­quer­ade.” Devon is a very ath­let­ic kid, an absolute bas­ket­ball star, and that’s all he wants peo­ple to see him as. He is afraid to admit he loves to read. But as I con­tin­ue to read, Devon does­n’t just want to be “Jump­shot”, he is full of supris­es. He is begin­ning to accept him­self, a read­er, and let­ting peo­ple know about it too. I can relate to Devon, in some­ways sim­i­lar, but not equal. I’m not the geek every­one real­ly thinks I am, or the star. I actu­al­ly like to chill once in a while, and some­times I do for­get to do my home­work. And that’s okay. I’m okay with that. Just 100% me. Devon Hope’s poem, “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” has been my favorite poem so far. It is just the typ­i­cal life of a teenag­er I believe. Every­one hides behind a mask at some point, but when you take it off, and show your true col­ors, that’s when you are you.“I woke up this morn­ing, exhaust­ed from hid­ing.” This is one of my favorite lines of the poem. “…dis­cov­er the poet in tough-guy dis­guise.” I love this too. Poet­ry is a easy way to express your­self. It’s almost a con­ver­sa­tion, but with so much more emo­tion. I give props to you Devon, for start­ing to take off your mask, and to you Ms. Nik­ki Grimes, please keep writ­ing girl!

  158. In my Eng­lish class our class has been read­ing the “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” I believe your char­ac­ters should not be dis­crim­i­nat­ed on their race. The char­ac­ters go through issues that peo­ple can relate to in real life and many peo­ple relate. They write poems that are very inspir­ing. My favorite char­ac­ter is Devon because he is not afraid to express him­self. My favorite poem is “Bronx Mas­quer­ade” by Devon because it explains how he is exhaust­ed from hid­ing who he is and under that tough guy dis­guise there is a poet.

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