Sharon's Reviews > The Blacker the Berry...

This book is classic black America, written in 1929 -- well-written for its time and subject. Emma Lou was educated and had lived in Idaho. Her problem was her skin color, not just black but dark. It mattered then and I suspect it still matters today. The book is still timely because of the unexplainable prejudices people have against each other for preposterous reasons. Emma Lou tried to escape the pettiness of her small town at college and in big cities but her color mattered everywhere. This is also a lesson to parents and others -- how a child perceives herself is shaped a good deal by how the child has been treated at home and by all she comes into contact with.