48 pages • 1 hour read
Sharon G. FlakeThe Skin I'm In
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel begins on the first day that Miss Michael Saunders is teaching at McClenton Middle School, an under resourced institution in an unspecified city. Maleeka Madison III, the seventh-grade protagonist, eyes the new teacher with suspicion; first of all, Miss Saunders has a “man’s name,” Michael. Second, she is “tall and fat” (7), with very small feet. Third—and most importantly, to Maleeka—Miss Saunders has a large white birthmark on her face. She asks Maleeka where the principal’s office is and compliments Maleeka’s dark skin; she compares it to “a blue-black sky after it’s rained and rained” (8), explaining that this line came from one of her favorite poems.
After silently noting the luxurious appearance of the teacher’s clothing, Maleeka reluctantly points her in the right direction. Part of why Maleeka wants no association with Miss Saunders is because she is, in Maleeka’s words, a “freak”—and Maleeka herself already feels like a social outcast. She fears Miss Saunders’s association would only attract more negative attention. In fact, Maleeka feels like a “freak,” too; her dark skin is part of why people bully her, especially John-John McIntyre, another seventh grader—though John-John’s complexion is just as dark as Maleeka’s.
Maleeka is also bullied for her socioeconomic status. Her father died three years ago, and her mother works hard at a low-income job. People focus on what they don’t like about Maleeka and don’t even notice that she is smart. She usually borrows her friend Charlese’s clothes to avoid wearing the lopsided clothes her own mother makes her; she remembers being humiliated when, one day, Charlese demanded her clothes back. After that, she decided that while she used to accept the bullying, she’s now through with it. Therefore, she firmly decides to avoid Miss Saunders, who is a clear liability.
Chapter 2 Summary
Maleeka tries to skip fifth period to avoid John-John, but she sees Miss Saunders scolding Charlese for making out with a boy named Worm. As Worm and Charlese walk away together, Miss Saunders threatens to send them to the principal’s office. Charlese curses her out, but Miss Saunders responds that she has heard it all before in her travels around the world. Charlese notices Miss Saunders’s Gucci watch and designer shoes and asks what she’s doing at McClenton Middle School. Miss Saunders says she wants to “give something back” (11). Before Charlese can say much more, she is interrupted by Tai, an eccentric math teacher. Tai is a short woman with long hair and a nose piercing. She and Miss Saunders were roommates in college. They walk toward the office together and again tell Charlese, Worm, and Maleeka to get back to class.
Chapter 3 Summary
Maleeka is in the bathroom, where Charlese and two of her friends, Raise and Raina (who are twins), are talking badly about Miss Saunders. The girls usually come to the bathroom to chat and smoke cigarettes. Charlese is the meanest among them, saying that if she looked like Miss Saunders, she’d kill herself. As she proclaims this, she blows smoke in Maleeka’s face.
Before Charlese, Maleeka was almost a complete loner. Last year, though, there was the handsome Caleb Jamaal Assam. He thought she was beautiful, wrote her poetry, and even gave her a ring; soon they were dating. But on a field trip to Washington, DC, John-John and all the other kids teased her and Caleb the whole way—until finally, Caleb left her to sit with his friends on the bus. After that incident, the bullying got worse, so Maleeka made a deal with Charlese that she would do Charlese’s homework if Charlese would agree to be her friend. Moreover, Charlese refused to be seen with someone poorly dressed, so she agreed to lend Maleeka some nicer clothes so she wouldn’t make Charlese look bad. Still, Charlese is not very nice to Maleeka.
Chapter 4 Summary
When Maleeka gets to English class late, Miss Saunders has the students writing responses to the prompt: “What does your face say to the world?” (15) Some kids take this as an opportunity to tease Maleeka’s skin again. Miss Saunders calls on Malcom Moore to answer the prompt. Malcolm is biracial—half white, half Black—and handsome, and his answer reflects that he is very full of himself. The students continue to give answers for a while, then Miss Saunders asks them what her face says to the world. The students are quiet. Maleeka, however, feels like Miss Saunders has already embarrassed her a couple times since she’s been teaching at the school, so she decides it’s Miss Saunders’s turn to be embarrassed; Maleeka answers, “I think it says, you know, you’re a freak” (16). After some silence, Miss Saunders explains that she was born with that mark on her cheek. Her family couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard they tried, so she decided to accept it. Miss Saunders opens a dialogue with the kids about her face, eventually concluding that it is important to love oneself.
Miss Saunders says that her face tells the world that she is smart, sassy, and “all that.” The students cheer her on. She shares more about her life; she works for an advertising agency downtown but is participating in a new program that lets professionals teach for a year in “inner-city schools.” She is considering switching careers to teaching and thinks this year will help. Then, Miss Saunders surprises the kids with a pop quiz to evaluate what they know.
Chapter 5 Summary
Maleeka shows up to school in brand new clothes because her Momma took her shopping with her bonus from work. In English class, Maleeka is partnered with Desda for an in-class project. Desda can cook well, but Maleeka isn’t exactly confident in her partner’s academic ability. Miss Saunders instructs each team to write a diary as though they are teenagers living in the 17th century. The goal of the exercise is to imagine living someone else’s experience. For about 10 minutes, Maleeka and Desda do nothing (Desda is busy smiling blankly at no one in particular, and Maleeka is unsure what to do about it) until Miss Saunders prompts them. Desda hardly pays attention, so Maleeka takes charge: She imagines she is an African girl, Akeelma, in the hold of a slave ship. In the diary entry, she is chained to a boy she is in love with and a girl who keeps stealing her food. In the end, Akeelma wakes from a sleep to see the boy has disappeared; the girl tells her that he died while she was asleep.
When the students turn in their assignments, Miss Saunders reads Maleeka’s out loud and says it is the best. After class, Miss Saunders invites Maleeka to keep writing the assignment for extra credit. Because Maleeka is in a good mood, she agrees.
Chapter 6 Summary
While Maleeka is walking down the hallways, Daphne Robinson accuses her of kissing her boyfriend, Worm. Daphne doesn’t believe Maleeka when she says it wasn’t her, and the girls start fighting. Miss Saunders grabs Maleeka’s raised hand to break up the fight, which allows Daphne to get another smack in. This leaves Maleeka’s face swollen and bloody. As the principal, Mr. Pajolli, breaks the crowd apart, Daphne spits mucus onto Maleeka’s shirt. Principal Pajolli takes Daphne to the office and tells another kid to take Maleeka to the nurse. Upset that Miss Saunders intervened, Maleeka wants her out of her life.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
The novel’s opening lines are an immediate and vivid introduction to the inner world of the protagonist, whose hard-nosed narration reveals the complexity of her character: “The first time I seen [Miss Saunders], I got a bad feeling inside. Not like I was in danger or nothing. Just like she was somebody I should stay clear of. To tell the truth, she was a freak like me” (7). These few sentences illustrate the narrator’s distinctive voice, but further—and more importantly—the reader now knows that Maleeka is an outcast, has low self-esteem, and has internalized others’ rejection to the point that she now judges others somewhat similarly; she seems to show little empathy for Miss Saunders despite personally knowing what it’s like to feel like a “freak.” However, this also reflects how badly Maleeka has been bullied. Only a young teen, she already has an almost businesslike survivalist mindset. She instinctively scans the world, including other people, in terms of self-preservation—and because Miss Saunders is a liability, Maleeka feels she can’t afford any association with her. Little does Maleeka know, Miss Saunders is the one who will ultimately help her survive.
The first chapter also promptly grounds the reader in the chronically hostile setting. As she scrutinizes Miss Saunders, Maleeka automatically frames her within a bully-victim dynamic; because the protagonist knows instantly that students will tease this teacher, the reader also knows the school is an unkind place. Moreover, aside from Miss Saunders, the first character whom the reader meets is John-John, one of Maleeka’s primary bullies and the mouthpiece of the school’s colorism. All this sets the stage for the protagonist’s long journey toward self-acceptance.
Maleeka faces bullying because of her dark skin. However, what John-John and the other kids consider ugly, Miss Saunders identifies as beautiful. Miss Saunders tells her, “Maleeka, your skin is pretty. Like a blue-black sky after it’s rained and rained” (8). This comment lends Miss Saunders much characterization; this means the author demonstrates important things about the character, such as her personality, values, and feelings. First, Miss Saunders’s statement is likely the kindest thing anyone at the school has ever told Maleeka, so this teacher immediately sets herself apart as somehow fundamentally different from others at the institution. Additionally, the remark reveals Miss Saunders’s poetic nature; she uses a simile, a literary device that compares things using the word “like” or “as.” In this comparison, two seemingly contrasting concepts are put together. On the one hand, the image of a rainy day would often suggest gloominess. Additionally, a “blue-black sky” implies nighttime, which can also be associated with danger, loneliness, and sadness. However, this line of poetry finds beauty and positivity in an image that might appear negative. This corresponds with the way Maleeka’s dark skin is perceived by her classmates. She has been constantly bullied for her complexion, even feeling like it makes her a “freak.”
By complimenting Maleeka, Miss Saunders flips the negative narrative about dark skin. She implies that it is not only beautiful but magnificent enough to be compared to the huge sky. Miss Saunders reveals that beauty is subjective. When something is subjective, that means it is based on someone’s opinions or experiences and not a stable fact. Miss Saunders proves that if the other kids can see dark skin as ugly, they could also see it as beautiful. This is the beginning of an important lesson for Maleeka, who has believed the negative perception of her skin to be objective, or an unarguable fact.
Further, it is fitting that Miss Saunders uses a simile, as she is the English teacher. Literature and writing become the primary way for her to connect with Maleeka. She explains that her simile comes from one of her favorite poems. Likewise, Miss Saunders later connects with her again through complimenting and encouraging Maleeka’s own writing in the diary entry assignment. These imaginative diary entries will be critical for Maleeka’s self-expression and her process of discovering her own voice. From early on, Miss Saunders plants the seeds for Maleeka’s character growth and ultimately her self-love.
In the hallway one day, Maleeka overhears Tai, the math teacher, saying about Miss Saunders, “You will love having this woman around. She really makes things happen” (11). Though she makes this remark to Charlese, it foreshadows the relationship between Maleeka and Miss Saunders. Foreshadowing is a literary device where the author leaves a hint about what will happen later in the story. Already in Chapters 1-6, Miss Saunders begins to shift how Maleeka thinks about herself, and she encourages Maleeka’s talents. Miss Saunders is “mak[ing] things happen” (11) in Maleeka’s life.
