Product Description

Dreenie Douglass keeps a day-to-day journal that seems to revolve around Bluish, a girl in her fifth-grade class. The other girls call her Bluish because she looks like moonlightŠ ³So pale you can see the blue veins on her face and the back of her handsŠ² Dreenie¹s fascination with Bluish becomes all consuming, causing even her moods to be based on her interactions with the bluish girl. This obsession is a way of escape for Dreenie, who takes care of her sister Winnie and her friend Tuli.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #397576 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780439367868
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Bluish is unlike any girl 10-year-old Dreenie has ever seen. At school she sits in a wheelchair, her skin so pale it's almost blue. Dreenie, herself new to the New York City magnet school, is fascinated by her, but wary as well. Unaware that the name Bluish could have derogatory connotations ("Blewish," for Black and Jewish), she fixates on the moonlight blue skin tones of this curiously fragile child. Together with Tuli, a bi-racial girl who pretends to be Spanish (often with poignantly comical results), the three carefully forge a bond of friendship, stumbling often as they confront issues of illness, ethnicity, culture, need, and hope.

This novel has an edgy quality that may disconcert some readers until they find the rhythm. Bouncing back and forth between Dreenie's first person journal entries and a third person narrative, the motion is a little unsettling. The overall theme is powerful, however, and Virginia Hamilton's skill in addressing the intense and subtle nuances of female friendships is impressive. No surprise, there; with over 30 books for young readers under her belt, and an armful of honors including the Newbery Medal for M.C. Higgins, the Great, three Newbery Honor Awards, the National Book Award, and many more, Hamilton is a formidable voice in children's literature. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly
When she starts at a new school, Dreenie feels drawn to a frail classmate, whom everyone calls "Bluish." In a starred review, PW said, "Readers will come to cherish Dreenie's openheartedness." Ages 9-12. (June) Fiction REPRINTS
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Grade 5-8-Ten-year-old Dreenie, a recent transfer to a New York City magnet school, is fascinated with her fellow classmate Natalie, a girl battling leukemia. Kids call her Bluish, not a derogatory term for her black and Jewish heritage, "Blewish," but because of the effects of chemotherapy on her skin. Dreenie's other friend, Tuli, is a flamboyant girl who is looking for the stability and normalcy that Dreenie and her family have. Through four weeks in December, these three girls move into a closer circle of friendship, with alternating feelings of fear, generosity, and kindness. Together, they are able to reach out to the rest of the class in accepting and celebrating Bluish as she is. Though her future is uncertain-it will take five years of remission before any assurance-readers are left seeing curly copper hair hiding under her skullcap, delighting her friends and inspiring hope. The narration alternates between Dreenie's journal and a third-person narrator, allowing readers to glimpse the firsthand incredulity of a child witnessing serious illness and also the reaction of a classroom community as it follows the highs and lows of Bluish's health. This structure doesn't always work, and readers may be puzzled when the narrative voice switches from third person to include Dreenie's journal entries. Hamilton occasionally slips into a heavy-handed adult perspective that does not reflect a 10-year-old's experience. At times, topics are introduced but are never fleshed out, such as Tuli's capricious living situation or Dreenie's sister's accusation that Dreenie "sure ain't one of us Anneva and Gerald Browns." A sensitive and quiet story that is not fully realized.
Katie O'Dell Madison, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Bluish is a well crafted, insightful, interesting children's
Bluish is a well crafted, insightful, interesting children's books about Dreenie, a fifth grader growing up in NYC and about her experiences making friends at a new school. It is a sensitive portrait of a girl coming to awareness of life--and of death. It isn't about being African American (as Dreenie is) or about being interracial (as Tuli is) or about being bi-cultural (as Natalie is). It isn't about being female or being an older or younger sister or a latchkey child. It isn't about having cancer or about holidays at Christmastime or about writing. It's not about getting a pet or being a New Yorker, although it touches on all of these as it shows Dreenie learning about the world--and about herself--one year when she is eleven years old and making friends with two girls very different from herself--and yet very similar. One friend happens to be--or wants to be--Spanish. One girl happens to have cancer. But we don't read the book to learn about cancer or how it fells to be growing up half Jewish or African American. We read it to experience what it is like to be Dreenie--to be all alone in a new school and then suddenly fascinated by a girl who is wrestling with a life threatening disease. Dreenie can't know what it's like to have cancer--and neither can we. We simply see things through Dreenie's eyes, feeling what she feels as she moves through the story. The obok is powerful because it takes us into Dreenie's skin and keeps us there from beginning to end, sharing her experiences and making these new friends.

Sweet, but not how it really is to be a girl with cancer
I am a girl now in remission from cancer, so I know how it really is, and I read every book there is to read on the subject. For a school report I have read this book Bluish and a book called Zink by Cherie Bennett. Bluish is sweet and Zink is bitter and sweet. Bluish is the way that my teachers would have liked for things to be with me when I was in school after chemo, and Zink is the way it really was. If you want to feel good, read Bluish. If you want to feel the real emotions of cancer, read Zink. I would love for you to feel the real emotions.

Uninteresting
Bluish is the name other kids give to Natalie Winburn. Her skin is so pale and she is so sick that the veins show through, causing her to be bluish. She arrives at her NYC public school in a wheelchair and a knit toboggan, holding the puppy she is allowed to bring to school (this is like no school I've ever worked in).

Bluish's mother isn't thrilled by the nickname her friends Dreenie and Tuli give her. She interprets it as a combination of Black and Jewish, and regards it as derogatory. Only when Dreenie explains the name does she understand, but she still wants her daughter to be called by her true name.

When Bluish knits toboggans for the entire class, the students are more accepting of her and she becomes something of a mascot, to be taken care of and coddled.

Bluish was hard to read. I got stuck on it for over a week because it was uninteresting. I did not think the Bluish character was well written. She came off as bland and unsympathetic. Tuli seemed self-absorbed and uninteresting as well. I was disappointed because Virginia Hamilton is usually a fine writer.