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Engaging and enjoyable coming of age novel about biracial sisters in the 1970s. Narrator Birdie and her older sister Cole are biracial, and when we meet them as young children, their parents� marriage is coming apart - parents Sandy and Deck are both radicals, but their personalities and different perspectives on radicalism are pulling them in different directions. An additional tension is that Birdie looks white, while Cole looks black. At their Black pride-oriented school, Birdie is the odd one out, and her father’s new girlfriend looks down on her. However, their blue-blooded grandmother ignores Cole. The girls� lives take dramatically different paths, as they are split between the parents, leaving Birdie to grapple with ‘passing� for white in her new life with her mother.

There was so much to think about in this - the freedom and the enormous constraints Birdie faces while passing, the racist things she hears her new friends say - the role played by class, as Birdie’s mom wants her to get to know the salt of the earth people in their new home - the changing ideas of race that various characters have. Birdie’s voice and some of the things she’s able to do were maybe not quite in keeping with her age, but it was a meaty, good read.