main characters

RUTHIE:

1. Ruthie comes from an intact family of the middle-class. Her father works as an engineer and her mother is a secretary and both of them are very caring. Ruthie, her parents and her brother are black, but they have lived in a suburb, where mostly whites live. Therefore the parents want more black influence for their children, so that they've moved to Northridge, where black urban professionals live. But the family is not accepted, so that Ruthie dislikes going to the American Methodist church, although the parents are very involved - they teach Sunday School - and seem to attach great importance to that.
2. Ruthie is very ambitious at school, because she wants to graduate and go to Harvard. Due to her achievements at school and her engagement she is very popular with the teachers and especially with the principal Mr. Ferris, for whom she is a role model for black pupils. Furthermore she is student body vice president and also tries to care for pupils who aren't good at school, she helps AJ with his chemistry homework and teaches his little brother Anthony reading (tutoring). Besides she dresses like a business-woman and acts like a white woman. She is emotional, sensitive, friendly and helpful, but confused about her black identity. She doesn’t fight with her fists but with words. Ruthie cares about others, Erika doesn’t; Ruthie wants to discuss problems, Erika wants to fight. Erika is more white and acts black, Ruthie is black and acts as if she is white. AJ loves Ruthie for whom she is, but he cannot do the same with Erika , because she is nothing more than a good-looking girl. Ruthie loves her family and gets along with them. Erika gets a lot of attention while Ruthie is more calm and shy. But Ruthie is brave and Erica isn’t, which you can see when it comes to their big fight.
3. Ruthie is friends with two white pupils, Andrea and Christian, which is the reason why black pupils don't like her.


AJ:

AJ comes from a broken family. His mother is dead because of suicide and his dad doesn't take care of his sons but he pays the bills. So AJ cares about Anthony because his older brother Franco is a drug dealer. This situation is very hard for AJ because on the one hand it is difficult for him to accept that his mother committed suicide and on the other hand his father doesn't support him. Besides AJ is a black, good-looking and athletic boy. He is a talented football-player and thinks that he will become a professional football-player ( He is an “emotional fighter” .) He is not interested in anything except sports, party, alcohol, girls and his friends which are his only hobbies. He never shows his emotions in presence of other people, although he is an emotional and sensitive boy actually. When AJ gets to know Ruthie his metamorphosis starts, he grows up and becomes a totally different person. He realizes that there are more important things than sports, parties or alcohol; instead of that he discovers the meaning of confidence, affection and deep love :D . In addition to this, he wants to be free and he wants Anthony to have a better life than he has. He doesn't care about his grades at school ( he doesn´t go there every day), either, because he is a football star and so he receives a scholarship no matter if he is good at school or not.
AJ uses, like most of the blacks, "Black English", but not as many slang words as Erika. ( I think so ;O) )


The Love from AJ to Ruthie:

I think that AJ falls in love with Ruthie because she shows real interest to him. She doesn't only look at his success, she really wants to get to know him and tries to help him with the problems he has, for example the death of his mother and finding a place to live for his little brother Anthony. At the beginning of the book, he thinks that Ruthie is boring because she studies a lot and he really doesn’t like the way she talks and acts. AJ also hates that Ruthie looks him straight in the eyes, which makes him feel uncomfortable. Soon he finds out that she is a very kind and clever girl. AJ recognizes that Ruthie is really interested in his life. At first he hates it but later, when they come closer, his opinion changes. He notices that Ruthie can be a real help for him and he thinks that he would never be good enough for her. AJ loves Ruthie seriously for what she did for him.

Erika:

At the beginning of the book, Erika loves to fight with black girls of her school and she is a real egoist. Erika doesn't care about her grades at school and she often becomes very jealous. She is the child of a black father (he lives in Phoenix) and a white mother (->her parents are divorced, that’s why Erika’s mother drinks a lot of alcohol and has many boyfriends), so that all her enemies call her "half-breed", which causes her some identity problems. She acts and talks more like a black girl and she has a temper. Erika can sing very well and tries hard to be successful in the choir she is in. She has a boyfriend, who is named AJ, and she is very proud of him.In the end, she learns from her mistakes and becomes a better person.
Erika's language is very special^^. She speaks "Black English", although she has got a white mother. I think that shows that Erika has an identification problem. Because she is light-skinned, she doesn't know where she belongs to: she is too black for the whites and too white for the blacks. God is the only whom she trusts because he is colour-blind .

summary

The book coming of age is about 3 teenagers in Denver, America who are going through their last year of high school. It explains the prejudices and attitudes of society. Specifically of how Ruthie, AJ and Erika deal with their lives and come of age ;) .

Ruthie is a black girl who has grown up in a middle class white area, so she is not a typical ‘black’ girl. She feels shunned by other black students and is friends with white students because she finds more comfort and acceptance with them. During her chemistry class she gets to know AJ Johnson, the school’s football star. After an accident during a chemistry experiment. Ruthie has to be taken home by AJ. ( The accident happens because AJ hasn’t been concentrated. )At school, AJ meets his jealous girlfriend Erika who gets on his nerves. She tells him that her friends have seen him with another girl (Ruthie). AJ says that they are right and he explains the whole situation to her. But Erika doesn’t really believe him. She decides to observe them. Erika is a girl whose mother is white and whose father is black and she has never felt like having a place in life because she is mixed. She often fights with the ‘black’ girls of her school who make comments about her being a ‘half breed’. She also fights with her mother who hates black men like Erika’s dad. ( Erika’s parents are divorced. ) In addition to this, you can say she is the leader of her group which consists of other mixed girls and some white girls. After two days Ruthie is healthy again and gets to know that Erika is jealous of her because of the contact with AJ. Ruthie talks about it with AJ and her friends. And she considers Erika’s reaction as childish. Then Ruthie and AJ continue to be lab partners and Ruthie has no feelings towards AJ except for disrespect because she categorises him as a typically arrogant, good-looking football player. AJ’s feelings towards Ruthie are also of low regard, because she is ‘some smart black chick’ who makes him feel uncomfortable because of the way she speaks, she dresses and because she has really good marks. In contrast to this, AJ comes from a lower class area where he lives with a father who is only there to keep a roof over their heads but nothing else ( His mother is dead because of suicide. ), an older brother ( Franco) who is in a gang and also deals drug and a much smaller brother ( Anthony) AJ is trying to protect so he wouldn’t become a dealer or get in trouble with the law like the eldest brother. One day AJ is on a party where he also meets Erika. She wants to make him jealous because of his contact with Ruthie. Therefore Erika flirts with a boy from a gang. As a result he does the same with a girl named Trina. Later on, Erika is in the church because she is a member of the choir. She is very excited because she hopes AJ’s coming to the church and she has to sing a solo. Erika is feeling really good while singing but she is also angry because AJ didn’t show up.In addition to this, Ruthie goes to the church with her family but she doesn’t look interested. When Erika sees Ruthie with the whole family, she gets jealous as she hasn’t got such a perfect family. But Erika finds her own solution because she thinks that God doesn't care about the colour of a person. ( Her mom judges people by the colour of their skin.) On the next day, Erika’d like to know if AJ actually loves her. For a long silent moment, he doesn’t really know what to answer because he hasn’t expected Erika asking him something like that. She asks him the question because in her opinion he flirts with other girls. AJ is helpless so he asks her if she actually loves him. Erika lovely says 'yes' but instead of answering ‘yes’ as well, he kisses her. Besides, it has nothing to do with AJ himself when Ruthie helps him with his chemistry homework because he has missed a lot. In addition to this, he asks her how it is like when she falls in love with a boy. She answers that she has never had any boyfriends. But nevertheless, she has a special imagination about true and deep love. She describes it as a pretty, wonderful and perfect feeling every time you think about the person you love. Some days later, everybody, especially people from the newspapers and from the TV would like to know where the famous football players, AJ and his friends, want to go to college. But at this time, AJ has no idea. During a chemistry lesson he asks Ruthie where he should sign in. But she answers that it isn’t ok that all colleges in America want to have great football players and not hard - working and good students. Then, Ruthie becomes involved in helping AJ’s little brother with his school work ( tutoring), which AJ has taken as an action against him. However, Ruthie is able to show AJ that she only wants the best for Anthony. She also brought Anthony over, welcoming both of them to her home. After this, AJ and Ruthie start having very different feelings about each other and AJ breaks up with Erika to start going out with Ruthie. Erika and her friends are furious at what AJ has done, and swear they would get Ruthie and threaten her, planning to beat her up. Later on, when confronted, Ruthie manages to make it a one - on - one battle against Erika and finally wins verbally, as Erika runs off in shame. After this, Erika’s self is confused and destroyed and she starts seeing things about herself she has never seen before. She goes through a process of events which makes her realize what type of life she wants and that she can have it. While AJ is together with Ruthie, he starts to see what is going on around him. He understands what he must do for himself and his brother to ensure a good future, also learning about himself and how to trust and love another people on an intimate level. Ruthie also learns much about herself. She has always known that not all the black people are friendly, nice and wonderful, but she finds out that not everyone is against her as she has once believed. She learns that everyone has his own prejudices and faults but that this is normal. Finally she is prepared for college AND life ahead but realizes that she still has things to experience to help her with what she may have to deal with next.

( test)

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