The Other Side is a story of two young girls living in the pre-Civil Rights Movement era, Clover and Annie. Clover is an African-American girl, while Annie is Caucasian. They live next to each other, yet a fence separates their property, as well as their lives. Clover's mother warns her that she should never climb over the fence, because it was not safe and “that’s the way things have always been”. But day by day Clover's interest in Annie grows as she notices the girl playing outside and sitting on the fence. Despite her friends' lack of support, Clover introduces herself to Annie and together they sit side-by-side on the fence the entire summer. Eventually, Annie is invited to jump rope with Clover and her friends. When they were too exhausted to continue playing, all of the girls sat along the fence, and Annie remarks that “someday somebody’s going to come along and knock this old fence down”.
I think that this story has a strong sense of symbolism and portrays what life might have been like for children during this time period. I could integrate this book into a lesson about symbolism, and have the children come up with things that the fence might represent. This would also be a great book to use to study Black History Month, where students could research life for children during this time and how the lives between black and white students varied greatly. In addition, they could research people or events that helped to tear the “fence” down.
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