Rating: 
Summary: Bluish
Review:
Dreenie is exposed to new things. She's in an alternative school where kids refer to teachers by first names. Her friend, Tuli, pretends she's Newyo-rican and relies on Dreenie to care for her, which is sometimes annoying since Dreenie already has to look after Willie, her own little sister. However, the newest intriguing person in Dreenie's life, the person that seems most like Dreenie, is Bluish. Kids at school call her Bluish because her skin is pale with bluish veins. Bluish's mother says the nickname "Blewish" is derogatory and refers to her daughter's bi-racial ethnicity, Black and Jewish. To Dreenie, Bluish is the color of the "Pale moonlight." Bluish is sadness. Bluish is the girl in the wheelchair, gets chemotherapy and only comes to school sometimes. Bluish is alone. Bluish is her shadow. Bluish is always on her mind. Bluish is a part of her. Hamilton's story addresses issues upper elementary school children begin to face. Being different and finding acceptance is a challenge at this age. In Hamilton's novel we see how kids, given unusual circumstances, accommodate and adapt to the unique. Differences are overcome when people take time to share, communicate, understand, adapt to, and encompass one another. In other words, "Bluish is, because we are; we are, because Bluish---is---us!" Parts of Hamilton's novel are formatted to depict diary entries. Her writing style is compliments the story's action. Sometimes thoughts are simply stated. Sometimes the essence of the writing is poetic. Ideas are not always complete with a beginning, middle, or end. Sometimes an idea just passes through and then we're on to the next that, in turn, may become more solid, grounded, sure. It feels as though the writing is that of a child writing diary entries. Children reading this novel should be able to jump right in and enjoy for this very reason.
Rating:
Summary: A novel of friendship and hope
Review: "Bluish" is a novel by Virginia Hamilton, a prolific and multiple award-winning author of books for young readers. "Bluish" tells the story of Dreenie, a young girl who attends a magnet school in New York City with her brainy (but annoying) younger sister, Willie, and their eccentric friend Tuli. When a pale-skinned, apparently ill girl in a wheelchair joins her class, Dreenie is fascinated by her. The girl is nicknamed "Bluish" due to her bluish complexion. Dreenie begins a diary documenting her evolving relationship with Bluish."Bluish" is a gentle, moving novel about overcoming fear of someone who is different. The book is a hopeful celebration of childhood friendship. A nice touch is the fact that entries from Dreenie's journal are interspersed between the chapters of the novel. The book also offers an interesting perspective on the multicultural, multifaith world of NYC schoolkids; there's even a little primer on the celebration of Kwanzaa. Overall, an impressive effort from Hamilton.
Rating:
Summary: A novel of friendship and hope
Review: "Bluish" is a novel by Virginia Hamilton, a prolific and multiple award-winning author of books for young readers. "Bluish" tells the story of Dreenie, a young girl who attends a magnet school in New York City with her brainy (but annoying) younger sister, Willie, and their eccentric friend Tuli. When a pale-skinned, apparently ill girl in a wheelchair joins her class, Dreenie is fascinated by her. The girl is nicknamed "Bluish" due to her bluish complexion. Dreenie begins a diary documenting her evolving relationship with Bluish. "Bluish" is a gentle, moving novel about overcoming fear of someone who is different. The book is a hopeful celebration of childhood friendship. A nice touch is the fact that entries from Dreenie's journal are interspersed between the chapters of the novel. The book also offers an interesting perspective on the multicultural, multifaith world of NYC schoolkids; there's even a little primer on the celebration of Kwanzaa. Overall, an impressive effort from Hamilton.
Rating:
Summary: Bluish is a well crafted, insightful, interesting children's
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Sweet, but not how it really is to be a girl with cancer
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't connect with the characters
Review: I was really looking forward to reading this novel after having met and heard speeches from Virginia Hamilton at both NCTE and IRA National conventions. I have to say I was disappointed. I couldn't connect to the characters and even had trouble telling their voices apart. I'm sure book will do well based on her reputation as an author, but I was not impressed. Not enough development of story to use with my students.
Rating: 
Summary: BLUISH is all about friendship
Review: I wrote BLUISH as an honest attempt to show friendship among three schoolgirls who seemingly are different, yet are able to learn how very much alike they are. It was written from my experience and that of my children to some extent. I was never a bi-racial child as Bluish is, but I was a black child, like Dreenie. And my children, now adults, are bi-racial, as are Bluish and the third child, Tuli. I am sixth generation African American married to a 4th generation European Jewish American. My husband and I have been happily married for 39 years. And writers of books for all children for even longer. The bi-racial marriage of Bluish's parents in the book reflect the good experiences of cross-cultural living of myself and my husband. Our grown children remember what it was like growing up bi-racial in New York and Ohio. They attended schools in both places. Among their friends were all kinds of kids, of various races and religions. Some were also ill, as Bluish is, but they survived childhood leukemia. Some of my experiences as their mother helped me sort out the plot and situations of BLUISH. Unfortunately, there are always people who will find fault with small things in a book and forget all the large issues that are important. What I was writing was a true story about kids learning to live together in their daily lives. You don't make up situations, they happen in your gut when you're a writer. I did considerable research on the conditions of alternative schools, on childhood leukemia and the west side neighborhood where my family lived for many years. In our family the winter holidays were the most fun in New York. We had a Christmas Tree which we also called a Hanukkah Bush. Both Tree and Bush were never taken as serious religious symbols but as part of the brightly lit city that surrounded us during the holidays. Fifth graders, Dreenie, Tulie and Bluish care about their world, their families and learn to care about one another. They have adventures that reflect the fun to be found in cities and they learn to live their childhood lives, good and bad, to the fullest. This is a young novel, and I think it has the proper degree of emotional and intellectual content for that age group.
Rating:
Summary: Too confusing in tone and message to really enjoy
Review: I'm sure this author's heart was open when she wrote this book, but I found the constant jumps in perspective and points of view jarring, and the theme muddied by a wish to try to do too much in a brief tome. There are some absolutely stirring passages that get lost amidst the thematic clutter.
Rating: 
Summary: Multicultural yes, but Judaism brutally slighted.
Review: In Bluish, author Virginia Hamilton hits all the hot multicultural buttons. Not only does a mixed white-black-Jewish girl have cancer, but she's surrounded by a rainbow coalition of children. This is a good thing. Kids in it are educated about Christmas and Kwanzaa and Channukah, and the theme is obviously that we need to get over our differences. Also a good thing. Here's the problem, and it's one a gentile author would make far before a Jewish one might. Bluish, the child of an inter-marriage, at one point in the novel unveils a banner for a holiday tree. What does she proudly write on the banner? HANNUKAH BUSH. Ouch! "Hannukah Bush" is to Jews as "Uncle Tom" is to African Americans. It is the painful adaptation of a purely Christian symbol to a Jewish holiday that has zero to do with Christ, in an effort to try to fit in better with the Christian holiday. No Jewish girl who has had any kind of integrity in her family upbringing would do this. Not only that, it's an indication that you are uncomfortable with yourself and your Judaism. And this is just indicative of larger problems within the simple world of Bluish, even larger problems which the author dodges at all costs: At what price does a child sacrifice her self-identity? Would she have done it but for having had cancer and been in need of friends? Not recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Hamilton leaves me hopeful!
Review: Sometimes children can be unknowingly mean and brutal. Virginia Hamilton's characters seem real and natural. And how real and natural for children to tease and fear what they do not know. Hamilton's characters move smoothly from at first being fearful of Bluish to knowing her, understanding her illness, and becoming protective. Although not too many unexpected twists and turns, Bluish quickly draws you into a group of very likeable characters. "Girlfren'" Tuli is a hoot. Excellent reading for 5th or 6th grade.
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