The Other Side

From The Critics

[A] collection...which may inspire young readers to write about the people and places in their own lives.

Children's Literature - Carol Collins

This deceptively simple book of poems offers wry insightful glimpses into the character of the people and locale of Shorter, Alabama, which was torn down to make way for a dog track. The young Afro-American poet claims to both love and hate this southern rural town where she grew up, but it is primarily love that comes across in the free verse. As she chronicles stories of her family, friends, and self in an immediate vernacular voice, weaving its way through concise vignettes, there is a wistful sense of loss of the way of life once embedded in the "red, red dirt of Alabama." The personal black-and-white photos included in the book invite the reader to make connections between the people in the poems and those in the pictures, but much remains slightly out of focus. The book jacket of photos superimposed on a green padlocked fence is emblematic of these locked-away memories. Likewise, while these poems communicate both to children and adults, life on "the other side" ultimately remains out of reach. The childhood experiences should be of particular interest to children, and the young author can be an inspiration to aspiring writers.

Children's Literature - Susie Wilde

Many books released for young adults may work better for those who are grown. I was deeply impressed with the raw emotions and narrative power of Angela Johnson's The Other Side: Shorter Poems, a volume based on memories of her Alabama town which was razed to make a dog track. This volume deservedly won both the Coretta Scott King and Lee Bennet Hopkins awards, but I had to read it alone. I couldn't get children I knew to share it with me.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-7-These verses by the versatile African-American writer give readers glimpses at her years growing up in the small town of Shorter, AL. Through prose poetry and colloquial speech, Johnson recalls skinny-dipping, the soft Alabama breeze, dirt roads, and red dusty porches. She presents vivid images-mothers stripping their children in the Wash-a-Teria to launder their clothes; houses smelling of "cinnamon and dead flowers;" getting up enough nerve to ask the secret of growing old. She touches on topics such as Vietnam, racism, and the Black Panthers, but also recalls dancing in the woods with a "boom box blasting through the trees." This slim volume just may open up increased awareness and understanding about the way things were-and how they sometimes still are.-Sharon Korbeck, Waupaca Area Public Library, WI

Kathleen Odean

[A] collection...which may inspire young readers to write about the people and places in their own lives.
— Book

Kirkus Reviews

Johnson (Gone From Home, p. 1036, etc.) offers a collection of poems that comprise a single, intricate story of the town of Shorter, Alabama, a place she "loved and hated." With its houses and red dirt roads, Shorter is being pulled down to make a dog track, and Johnson's poems tell readers what matters: the smell of soap at the Wash-a-Teria on a hot afternoon, the shack that hid her grief after her dog died, the carousel horse with the red saddle outside a store. Her whole family is there, in a town "where/every other person is/related to you/and thinks they know/everything about your/life." Her father is haunted by Vietnam; her best friend, T. Fanny, sends her grandmother a carton of cigarettes every year in memory of the time both girls were caught smoking and as punishment were put in the broom closet with a pack of unfiltereds; Uncle Fred has a scar across his face from trying to order lemonade in Montgomery. They burst into life in these poems and glisten with the affection Johnson lavishly bestows. Illustrated with family snapshots, this bittersweet volume will catch the heart of any reader who believes that growing up means leaving home behind. (Poetry. 10-14) .