Maw Books Blog

In my recent book review of Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo I mentioned how she deals with death. If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson is another book that deals with this subject matter but this one for teenagers. I don’t want to give to much of the book away, so that’s all I say about that part.

I bought If You Come Softly because I had previously read Feathers, a Newbery honor book, by the same author (click on book title to be taken to my book review). I did enjoy this one much more, although I enjoyed Feathers as well.

Ellie and Miah both attend a private high school and once they literally bump into each other they can’t stop thinking about each other. Things only get better when Miah is transferred into Ellie’s class and they soon become inseparable and caught up in the joy’s of first love (ahh, first love . . . . makes me think back). But people whisper behind their backs and old ladies give them startling looks? Why? Because Ellie is a white, Jewish girl and Miah is black. Can their love survive, especially when they meet each other’s parents?

What I especially liked about this book is that is wasn’t the typical white and black relationship stereotype that you see in so many movies (you know all those ones that feature dancing and the “forbidden” relationship). Ellie has problems of her own, mostly fear that her mother, who left not just once but twice when Ellie was young, will abandon her again. The one in her family who found it hard to accept her new relationship was surprisingly her lesbian sister, who you would think would be okay about that sort of thing. Miah is not your average black boy from “the hood.” He’s the son of a Academy Award winning director and his mother is a well-known author and he lives in a huge and beautiful home.  That’s what I like about this book.  Both characters are on equal footing, their only difference is their skin color.

A couple quotes that I thought were insightful from If You Come Softly:

I used to think it didn’t matter - that everyone in this world had the same chance, the same fight. Imagine two babies born - one white, one black. Maybe their mothers shared the same hospital room and talked low - when all the excited visitors were gone and the hospital was heavy with sleep - about their futures. Talked about their dreams for the babies, long after the two a.m feeding was over. I used to think that all those babies needed was some kind of chance - and a mother’s dream for them. I was so . . . so silly back then. Naive. I believed stuff like that. Just because no one in this family had ever said a hateful thing about black people.

‘All people,’ Marions was often saying. ‘All people have suffered. So why should any of us feel like we’re better or less than another?”

But where were they then - these black people who were just like us - who were equal to us? Why weren’t they coming over for dinner? Why weren’t they playing golf with Daddy on Saturdays or quilting with Marion on Thursday nights? Why weren’t they in our world, around us, a part of us?

The title of the book comes from this passage:

‘There’s this poem,’ he [Miah] said, ‘that my moms used to read to me.

If you come softly
as the wind within the trees.
You may hear what I hear.
See what sorrow sees.
If you come slightly
as threading dew,
I will take you gladly,
nor ask more of you.

When you told me that thing about Marion, it made me think of it. The way stuff and people come and go.’

‘It’s pretty, that poem.’ I closed my eyes. Maybe people were always coming toward each other - from the beginning of their lives. Maybe Miah had always been coming toward me, to this moment, sitting in Central Park holding hands. Coming softly.

Okay, I could come up with tons more. But that should give you a taste of the book. I think I’ll be reading more of Jacqueline Woodson for sure, and well she’s got a lot! Visit Jacqueline Woodson’s website here.

On a side note: A few more days left in my giveaway of Frank McCourt’s Angela Ashes and ‘Tis. Don’t forget to enter.