Don't Say Ain't

by Irene Smalls

Book Overview

Don't Say Ain't, by Irene Smalls, is a beautiful and moving story of a young girl's struggle to adjust to a changing world without losing touch with her roots. It's 1957 and jump ropes beat out Double... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157091382X
• ISBN13: 9781570913822
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 9.0" x 10.8"
• Age Range: 6 to 9 years
• Grade Range: Grades 1 to 4

Customer Reviews

Makes You Think!

This story to me is very sad. In order to obtain a better education, the girl has to travel outside her community and face a culture that she barely understands. It seems formal and loveless to her, unlike her old friends and neighborhood. How to reconcile the two? It happens in a small way when her teacher from the "advanced" school visits her home. Her teacher speaks the same dialect Dana (our protagonist) does at her home but when she leaves, returns to the formal "correct" way of speaking outside her door. It is so sad to think that getting an education is a choice in leaving a way of life and culture behind. It is not true just for African-Americans but for many people as well. I am an ESOL teacher and many of my students have left their homes to come to the US to learn English, the language of power in the world, and get a better education. This book highlights the loss people go through, and is a kind of mourning for life and loss.

A CANDID, AFFIRMING STORY

School is a subject that is familiar to most children. And, attending a school outside of one's neighborhood is a subject that is becoming more and more familiar to youngsters today. At times, that situation presents adjustments and even problems. Such is the spot young Dana finds herself in. Our story is set in Harlem in the 1950s. Dana loves her neighborhood, and her friends. But, when she scores in a high percentile on a citywide test she is sent to a newly integrated advanced school. What a change! Some of the students at the new school are less than accepting, and even her teacher comments on Dana's language usage, saying, "Do not use `ain't' in school." When Dana attempts to change the way she talks then her old friends in the neighborhood withdraw wondering if Dana now thinks she is better than they are. It's a challenge for Dana to find her place in two very different worlds, both of which are changing. There are good lessons for all in this candid, affirming story illustrated with colorful oil paintings. - Gail Cooke