Woodson’s story is a book that just begs to be read aloud on a rainy day. Beautifully and simply worded, wonderfully illustrated, The Other Side is perfect for discussing racism on a level that children can understand. It’s a story of friendship across a fence, a racial divide between the white and black side of town. How these two girls come together, one curious and one fearful, and how, together, they triumph over the physical reality of the symbol dividing their two worlds, hints at a bright future for us all.

Highly recommended. Very helpful to promote discussion about values, racism and diversity.

From Publishers Weekly-
“Woodson lays out her resonant story like a poem, its central metaphor a fence that divides blacks from whites. Lewis’s evocative watercolors lay bare the personalities and emotions of her two young heroines, one African-American and one white. As the girls, both instructed by their mothers not to climb over the fence, watch each other from a distance, their body language and facial expressions provide clues to their ambivalence about their mothers' directives...By season's end…"We sat up on the fence, all of us in a long line." Lewis depicts bygone days with the girls in dresses and white sneakers and socks: "Someday somebody's going to come along and knock this old fence down," says Annie, and Clover agrees.

Pictures and words make strong partners here, convincingly communicating a timeless lesson.”