After everything that he had been through and training so hard, he deserved to win. I liked it because I wasn’t sure what would happen next – I really wanted Donte to win against Alan. I found it very exciting when Donte and Alan finally took part in the fencing competition.

The ending of the story was my favourite part. I really liked the two brothers, Donte and Trey because they were really funny especially when they tease and play fight with each other. Donte starts to get trained by a fencer who has been in the Olympics. Donte soon has enough of the bullying and challenges Alan to a fencing competition. Donte ends up getting arrested and suspended from school after an incident with Alan. He chants ‘black brother, black brother’ to Donte throughout the story, hence the name of the book. Alan makes Donte feel uncomfortable and he is racist towards him. It is clear that the brothers are treated differently at school because they look different and Donte is bullied by a boy at school called Alan, who is the best fencer on the school fencing team. Donte has darker skin and Trey has lighter coloured skin.

When an incident with a white student leads to Donte’s arrest and suspension, he’s sure the only way to get even is to beat the student at the school’s most valued game: fencing. With the help of a former Olympic fencer, Donte embarks on a journey to carve out a spot on the school’s fencing team and to find a way to make people at school see past the colour of his skin to who he really is.īlack Brother, Black Brother is a story about two teenage brothers with different coloured skin. Dubbed the ‘Black Brother’, Donte’s teachers and classmates make it clear they wish he were more like his lighter skinned brother, Trey.

Most of the students don’t look like him. As one of the few black boys at his school, he feels as if he is constantly swimming in whiteness. It is written by award-winning American author Jewell Parker Rhodes and published in the UK by Hachette.ĭonte wishes he were invisible. This is a powerful and thought-provoking story for teens about two brothers – one who presents as white, the other as Black – and the ways they are forced to navigate a world that doesn’t treat them equally.

Black brother black brother