Review Detail

“Roxie in Color” by Diane Debrovner and Stacy Cervenka tells the story of a young girl named Roxie, at the start of seventh grade. While Roxie’s sole goal at her new school is to fit in, she finds herself anxious and worried much of the time that someone will discover the truth about her family—her parents are blind.

While Roxie really loves her parents, it doesn’t make acclimating to a new school and new friends easy. She worries what people will think, especially since at her old school she dealt with a lot of issues as a result of her parents’ blindness. Roxie has a lot of interests that she wants people to know her for, including her love of being an artist, her love of animals, and her desire to be a good friend to others. All of this is made harder not only because of her parents, but because she knows that one day she might inherit the condition that will cause her to go blind too.

Little by little, Roxie tells lies that aren’t meant to hurt anyone, but they catch up with her nonetheless and cause trouble in her friendships and in her relationship with her parents.

The story is told from both Roxie’s perspective as well as having some chapters told from her mother’s guide dog’s point of view. The story is realistic, touching, relevant, and poignant. It deals with the frustrations and happiness of being a young kid, as well as those of being someone with issues that seem, and may very well be, larger than one should have to deal with.

The novel is also placed in Atkinson Hyperlegible font, a font developed by the Braille Institute specifically for low-vision readers. This is a nice touch for a book about such a focused topic.