Title: The Skin I'm In
Author: Sharon G. Flake
Genre: Multicultural Contemporary
Pages:
Lexile level: 670L
Grade level: 4.2
Interest level: 9-12

Life is tough for students in a poor inner-city school, but it's especially tough for Maleeka, a smart girl with dark black skin who has to borrow another girl's clothes in order to avoid wearing the clothes her mom makes for her, and still dealing with the death of her father a few years before.

But Maleeka is trying to be a part of the crowd, hanging out with the same girls who picked on her, and still do, skipping class, smoking, and getting into trouble, but she knows it's no better than being alone. Now she has to do the other 3 girls' homework.
It's the new teacher, Ms. Saunders, who has vitiligo causing white patches on her dark face, who changes things for Maleeka when Char gets the idea to vandalize her classroom and Maleeka takes the fall for it. Ms. Saunders has hope for Maleeka and encourages her talent in writing. Through hard lessons of self-acceptance, Maleeka learns to love the skin she's in and stand up for herself.
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In this story, Maleeka uses diary entries written under a pseudonym, Akeelma, to express herself in ways she could never speak. Akeelma speaks poetically and figuratively of the hardships and wrongs her classmates put her through. Students can use Akeelma as an example and write their own journal entries with a pseudonym and express their feelings towards daily occurrences in a tone that they wouldn't typically speak in.
In one chapter of the book, Ms. Saunders's class is discussing Romeo and Juliet. If your classroom is exploring that play as well, the views in that chapter would be a wonderful starting place for a discussion in your class.