A few days later, Ana Rosa finds out she is different in another way: Papi is not her real father. Much to her disappointment, Angel and Angela dance all night, forming a beautiful couple. Papi takes her to the beach and teaches her to move her feet with the water Ana Rosa is then excited to show off her dancing at a party, especially in front of her brother’s handsome friend, Angel.

With Mami’s encouragement, Ana Rosa writes a short story about the whale and reads it aloud to all of their neighbors.Īna Rosa is also different from her siblings and other neighbors because she has trouble dancing. Through this frequent activity, it is Ana Rosa who first spots a whale swimming in the bay, an event which captures the excitement of the whole town. One of the central aspects of Ana Rosa’s personality is that she enjoys observing, especially from her special place in the gri gri tree near her house. After Ana Rosa confesses to stealing pages from Guario’s precious work notebook, she wrestles with the tension of letting her family down as a trade-off for her passion. Equally important to the people that Ana Rosa lives with are words: Ana Rosa is an aspiring poet, even though she knows that being a writer is a treacherous career in the Dominican Republic. Through both the poems and the first person story that follows, Ana Rosa reveals more about herself and about the people around her.Īs Ana Rosa begins narrating her story, she describes the things and people that are important to her: Mami, who teaches her most life lessons, Papi, who is a dreamer and drinks a lot, Guario, her hard-working older brother, and Angela, her beautiful older sister. In each chapter, Ana Rosa discovers something significant about her world usually this is connected to the topic of her poem. Each chapter of The Color of My Words begins with a short poem penned by the protagonist, Ana Rosa, who is 12 years old and very observant.

The color of my words by lynn joseph