I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This

Reference: Woodson, Jacqueline.  I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994. 114 pg.

Jacqueline Woodson’s novel, I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This, explores the meaning of love between a father and daughter and the meaning of friendship.  The novel is set in Chauncey, Ohio, which is an affluent all-black suburb.  Written from the perspective of Marie, she describes her distant relationship with her father after her mother left them and her difficult relationship with Lena, a poor white girl that she sometimes befriends.   We discover that Lena is being molested by her father, which causes Marie to think about her distant and depressed father and wonder if there is such a thing as too much love.  As Marie and Lena become closer friends, Marie begins to lose her other friends for becoming an “Uncle Tom” by befriending the “Whitetrash”.  At the end of the novel, Marie discovers that Lena has run away with her younger sister, because her father has begun to molest the younger sister also.  We are left with the question if Marie has learned anything from her relationship with Lena. 

This novel deals with very sensitive issues that middle school students may not know about. The issue of race and racism is a topic that is discussed frequently, but it is not usually discussed when a white girl is the minority that is belittled.  This novel would be very interesting to teach as a shorter companion to a traditional racism novel or as a modern view on the effect of racism.   The only issue that a teacher might run into for this work would be the topic of molestation.  This could be a very sensitive topic that students do not know about and that parents may not want their kids to read about at the middle school level.  Overall this is a very quick read, and the language is not too difficult.  However, there are many interesting conversations to be had about the lasting influences of the civil rights movement and the meaning of love.