Author: James McBride
Pages Read: 0-128
Prompt: Explain how a character is acting and why you think the character is acting that way.
During James' younger years, he was very unashamed of his mother. He would love for her to walk her to the bus stop and pick him up from the bus as well. He would love to go walking around the neighborhood holding his mom's hand, and acknowledging her presence. According to James himself, "it became the high point of my day, a memory so sweet it is burned into my mind like a tattoo, Mommy walking me to the bus stop and every afternoon picking me up..." He saw it like a reward, having alone time with his mom; walking the eight blocks to the bus stop on the corner of New Mexico and 114th Road.
During James' moody, pre-teen years, he was embarrassed of his mother. He never wanted to go anywhere with his mother. He said himself, "by age ten, I was coming into my own feelings about myself and my own impending manhood, and going out with Mommy, which had been a privilege and honor at age five, had become a dreaded event." He wanted to hide his "white mother" from the world. He would avoid telling his mom where he would play and where he would go with his friends, due to the fact he didn't want her to come and fetch him. In one scenario, his mother wanted him to go to the store with him and he told her he could go by himself, wanting to hide his mom. When he went to the grocery store, the old white man sold him a bottle of sour milk. When his mom saw the milk she ordered him to go take it back, and when he did the man wouldn't take it. So, just like James' worse fear, his mom marched up to the store, doing her crazy walk, and demanded a new bottle. Embarrassed of his mother, he tried to take her home and she wouldn't listen.
I think James' acted this way was because he knew he was different than his mom, and his friends. I mean, he was half black, half white. He saw it through his eyes, experiencing racism first hand. When his mother would pick him up from the bus stop, she would stand out with black women. He didn't want to walk around with his mom because he would hear people calling her names, and he would reply, then proceed to get his butt kicked. He knew that no matter what, he was always going to be the "in the middle kid." He wasn't going to be fully black, or fully white, so he was never going to fit in.
(I couldn't access Mrs. Larson's blog, so I just googled reading prompts.)
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