This Side of Home

Does growing up have to mean growing apart? From Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Rene Watson comes a poignant novel about love for home and for ourselves, embracing change, and what it means to grow up. Identical twins Maya and Nikki have always agreed on the important thingstheir friends, the right boys, their plans for college and the future. But before senior year begins, too many things are changing. Their neighborhood is starting to get niceand not really in a way Maya enjoys. With houses turning into trendy coffee shops and restaurants, and neighbors, including their best friend, Essence, being pushed out, Mayas neighborhood is becoming unrecognizable. And when a newWhitefamily buys the house Essences mom rented, Nikki suddenly has a new best friend and Maya has a new admirer, someone shes not sure she should like. And then theres their principal, intent on prioritizing the comfort of White students at the expense of the schools largely Black identity. Whats worse, no one seems to be as alarmed by these changes as Maya isnot even Nikki. As Maya struggles to hold on, she begins to wonder whereand with whomshe belongs.