Kids Can Be Cruel
The combination of a difficult home life and young kids at school who know the details of that harsh environment is inevitably going to produce problems. And when there is any chance for a teasing nickname to be used, the inevitable part comes much earlier. Imagery is used especially well in describing how a situation ripe for cruel teasing turns out for Dasani:
"Nothing gnaws at her like the words `shelter boogie.’ A mucus-stained nose suggests a certain degradation—not just the absence of tissues, but of a parent willing to wipe; or a home so unclean that a runny nose makes no difference. Dasani and her siblings can get hungry enough to lose focus, but they are forever wiping their noses…Public housing may represent all kinds of inertia. But to live at Auburn is to admit the ultimate failure—the inability to give your children a roof. There is no recovering from `shelter boogie.’ The most Dasani can do is duck the label.”
Dasani
Imagery of water is prevalent throughout the narrative. This recurrence begins on the story’s opening pages with reference to the name of the young protagonist. It is situated as essential to the larger story of the history and evolution of Brooklyn:
“Even Dasani’s name speaks of a certain reach. The bottled water had come to Brooklyn’s bodegas just before she was born, catching the fancy of her mother, who could not afford such indulgences. Who paid for water in a bottle? Just the sound of it— Dasani —conjured another life. It signaled the presence of a new people, at the turn of a new century, whose discovery of Brooklyn had just begun.”
Ten to a Room
How would you do if have to sleep in a room with nine other people? And on top of that you are still a kid? And on top of that you are going to school that is underfunded and overlooked? Could you manage to carve out a reputation among teachers and administration as an academic superstar and, on top of that, a talented athlete as well? Before answering, consider just part of the imagery that describes those living conditions.
“It is something of an art to sleep among ten people. You learn not to hear certain sounds, or inhale certain smells. But other things intrude on Dasani’s sleep. There is the ceaseless drip of the decaying sink, and the scratching of mice. It makes no difference that the family lays out traps or hangs food from the ceiling in a plastic bag. Auburn’s mice always return, as stubborn as the `ghetto squirrels,’ in Chanel’s words, that forage the projects for Chinese fried chicken.”
One to a Mattress
Once Dasani is accepted into a special school program for gifted students from low-income families, everything changes. The environment is a shock to the system, hitting both highs and lows that will create turmoil. But one especially notable improvement in living conditions are those involving Dasani’s sleeping arrangements:
“She has never slept alone, with a mattress to herself. She keeps reaching for Lee-Lee. `I don’t know how to sleep with nobody.’ Outside, the sky is wide and dark, the snow almost silver. Hershey is so quiet that any noise is jarring—the rustling of branches, the thrum of a truck. Everything feels different, even the air. A few feet away, Dasani’s fourteen-year-old roommate, Helena, is fast asleep. She, too, is a city girl. But Helena came from Trenton, New Jersey, five years ago, which is long enough to learn how to sleep through the quiet.”
