Bluish

Set in upper Manhattan, the story follows Dreenie, a fifth grader at Bethune Cookman School (BCS), an alternative magnet school that draws students from across New York City. The novel alternates between Dreenie's private journal entries, written in first person, and third-person narrative chapters, both centered on Dreenie's growing relationship with a classmate she calls Bluish.

Dreenie's journal opens with her first encounter with Natalie, a new girl who arrives at school in a wheelchair carrying a small black puppy named Lucky. Dreenie notes that kids call Natalie "Bluish" because her skin is so pale that blue veins show through. Bluish has no eyebrows, wears knitted hats pulled low over her head, and looks constantly exhausted. In early entries, Dreenie describes Bluish sitting defiantly in the middle of the hallway, refusing to move until classmates stop pretending she is invisible. Dreenie clarifies that her journal is not for a grade; it exists entirely because of Bluish.

The narrative shifts to third person as Dreenie walks home through icy streets with her younger sister, Willeva, whom everyone calls Willie. Willie is a precocious third grader. Dreenie is responsible for getting Willie home safely each afternoon before their mother arrives from work. Dreenie and Willie are recent transfers to BCS, and Dreenie worries she is not as smart as the other students despite her father's reassurances. She secretly longs for a puppy of her own.

Dreenie's one close friend is Tuli (full name Tulithia), a girl a year and a half older but in the same grade. Tuli peppers her speech with Spanish words and acts older than her age. Beneath her boisterous exterior, Tuli is insecure and lives mostly with her grandmother Gilla, without a mother at home. After school one day, Tuli catches up with Dreenie and Willie and slides dramatically into slush at an intersection. Dreenie suspects Tuli staged the fall to signal she needs to be around a normal family for a while and brings her home. Though Dreenie cares about Tuli, she privately wishes for a closer friend, someone she could really talk things over with.

In later journal entries, Dreenie records Bluish's irregular attendance and a disturbing classroom scene: A classmate named Jamal tries to snatch Bluish's hat, and Bluish vomits in front of everyone. Dreenie, Tuli, and Max McKee, the college intern who serves as classroom aide, help clean up. Dreenie takes charge of the rowdy class, ordering students to sit down, and most obey. When Bluish later invites Dreenie to play at her house, Dreenie freezes, afraid of catching something. Bluish mutters "stupid dork-head" under her breath, and Dreenie feels ashamed, recognizing she may have lost a chance at friendship.

At supper, Dreenie describes Bluish to her mother, who identifies the likely cause as childhood leukemia, explaining that hair loss results from chemotherapy. Dreenie recoils at the word cancer and refuses to discuss it further. Her mother advises her to treat Bluish like any other friend. Later, Dreenie tells her father about Bluish. He reassures her that kids are tough, then changes the subject to Christmas presents.

Two weeks later, the class begins group projects presenting something unique about their city. Dreenie's group includes Tuli, a student named Paula from Brooklyn, and Bluish, whom Dreenie specifically requested when no other group did. Their plan is to photograph Broadway and mount the pictures on poster board. Over these weeks, Dreenie and Tuli begin regularly helping Bluish navigate the school. An unspoken understanding develops: Dreenie learns to be genuine rather than artificially friendly, neither too close nor too far.

Bluish gives knitted hats she and her mother made to Dreenie, Tuli, and later every student in the class. She also tapes a "Hanukkah Bush" sign to the classroom Christmas tree and wears a sign around her neck reading "I was born human. I'm named Natalie. But you can call me Blueish." Dreenie corrects the spelling by crossing out the e, establishing the nickname as B-l-u-i-s-h. Dreenie, Tuli, and Willie visit Bluish's large apartment on West End Avenue to sort photographs for their project. During the visit, Bluish's mother, Rita Winburn, confronts the girls, believing "Blewish" is a derogatory combination of "Black" and "Jewish." Bluish explains the name refers only to her pale skin from chemotherapy. Willie declares Bluish their friend and makes Mrs. Winburn laugh, though Mrs. Winburn says she would prefer they call her daughter Natalie.

Back at school, the class surprises Bluish by putting on all their knitted hats at Dreenie's signal. Bluish observes softly that they look like "a field of flowers" and that now they all look just like her. She teaches the class a dreidel game using her grandmother Celia's antique dreidel, a four-sided spinning top used during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The teacher, Ms. Baker, announces a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History.

When Bluish leaves for a doctor's appointment, Ms. Baker explains her illness to the class: Bluish has ALL, or Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a serious and painful disease with an 85 to 90 percent chance of cure if she goes five years without a relapse. Dreenie shares what Bluish has told her privately: Chemotherapy feels like dying, and a hollow needle drawn into her hipbone to extract bone marrow is the most painful part. That Friday, Dreenie calls Bluish at home to invite her to an African Market event two days after Christmas.

The class field trip takes them to a vivarium, an enclosed indoor habitat for living creatures, for the exhibit "Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter." Inside the hot, humid space, Bluish stands from her wheelchair and walks around, her knitted hat making her indistinguishable from classmates in their matching hats. A large Blue Morpho butterfly lands on Bluish's arm, and her face lights up. When Max reads that butterflies are toxic, Dreenie senses Bluish connecting the butterfly's poison to her own chemotherapy-poisoned body. Dreenie says to the air that it does not mean anything, that Bluish was not born that way.

Two days after Christmas, the girls exchange gifts at Bluish's apartment after attending the African Market with their families. Dreenie gives Bluish a model of the Blue Morpho butterfly; Bluish gives Dreenie a model of the Isabella Tiger, the butterfly Dreenie liked best. In the car ride to Dreenie's apartment, Bluish confides that she and Dreenie are alike and reveals that when she was very sick, she wanted everything to be over, before abruptly withdrawing.

At Dreenie's apartment, the families celebrate Kwanzaa together, a holiday rooted in African heritage. Dreenie's parents light candles on the kinara, Kwanzaa's ceremonial candle holder, and explain the holiday's seven principles. Her mother quotes the proverb: "I am because we are; because we are, I am." Bluish eats a small amount but struggles, staring at everyone's full plates. In the bedroom afterward, she breaks down crying, saying it takes so long to get back to normal. Willie asks bluntly if Bluish is going to die. Tuli declares firmly that Bluish will not die with them around, breaking the tension. Dreenie proposes a pact: They hold hands and she adapts the proverb into a pledge: "Bluish is, because we are; we are, because Bluish, is, us!" Bluish then removes her knit cap, revealing the shortest copper-red hair growing back in, proof that her chemotherapy is working and her body is recovering. The girls erupt in joyful screaming, dubbing her "Reddish."

In a final journal entry set in the new year, Dreenie addresses the journal directly to Bluish, revealing she always meant to give the entire record to Natalie as a gift. She signs it "GFF. Good Friends Forever." She reveals she finally received what she has wanted all along: Her father gave her a puppy after Christmas, a dark brown spaniel with white patches she names Poochie. Dreenie imagines walking their dogs together with Bluish in the summer and notes she plans to write a new journal about Tuli next, and then one about herself.