The Skin I'm In

By: Sharon G. Flake

Narrated by: Sisi Aisha Johnson

Sharon Flake’s award-winning debut novel

Maleeka suffers every day from the taunts of the other kids in her class. If they’re not getting at her about her homemade clothes or her good grades, it’s about her dark, black skin.

When a new teacher, whose face is blotched with a startling white patch, starts at their school, Maleeka can see there is bound to be trouble for her too. But the new teacher’s attitude surprises Maleeka. Miss Saunders loves the skin she’s in. Can Maleeka learn to do the same?

"Funny and clever … will pull readers into a world too rarely represented in middle-grade fiction."—Booklist

Critic reviews

"Johnson goes beyond delivering dialogue. She gets beneath the skin of Flake's complicated characters." (Audiofile)

Love yourself

Excellent book for children learning not to give in to peer pressure. I’m not sure how this book ended up in my downloads but after listening to a few chapters the book became enjoyable and I wanted to see what happened at the end.

Maleeka is so many of us… so many children now that desperately want to fit in. It teaches to stand up for yourself and to not be so afraid of someone of feel the overwhelming desire to belong that you sacrifice yourself, your reputation and your self respect.

The book seems a bit incomplete and towards the end it seems to skip a bit, the story jumps around a bit but there a lesson to be learned here. Overall it’s a decent book.

The narrator did a good job of portraying a child, it’s a good book to past the time.

Still rings true!

I loved everything about this book! The narration was expert; the narrator really drew me into the story. The story itself was reminiscent of the 90s. I thought the author just styled the book this way intentionally, until I heard that the copyright was from 1998. It’s heartbreaking and ironic that the same story that was true in the 90s still rings true today, about little dark skin girls having to struggle to love the skin that they’re in. I’m glad the antagonist got what she deserved in the end, and so did the protagonist, but in a wonderful way. This was an awesome listen! Five stars!

Great Story; Engrossing Narration

I’ve loved this story for decades on the page and hearing it read so beautifully aloud makes me love it even more.

Bravo!

Beautifully written and narrated. My students and I throughly enjoyed it. A must read or listen to. Love it!

enjoyed it

my middle school students enjoyed it so much, they wanted to write a part II