Bronx Masquerade

Diondra is the tallest girl at school, so her family and friends expect her to become a basketball player. However, she is unathletic and uninterested. She is an artist, though she tries to hide it from others—like other students in her class, she is self-conscious about the way she looks and what others think of her. Like Tyrone, she is a dynamic and round character. Her arc is explored through three separate poems and reflections, one of a handful of characters whose story gets multiple chapters.

In the beginning, Diondra is very timid and compares herself to Raul, the other visual artist in the class. He is bold and unafraid of sharing his work, and Diondra is the opposite. Her father does not support her art, and her first poem focuses on her fear of being mocked for her passion. Throughout the novel, however, she is encouraged by her classmates, Mr. Ward, and her own abilities to pursue art. Her second poem, “High Dive,” shows her growing willingness to take risks, and she doesn’t hide her drawings from her classmates anymore. She and Raul bond over their shared love for art. By the final chapter, she is determined to study art in college and even decides to tell her father directly, hoping he will understand her. Through her art, poetry, and support from her classmates, she gains the courage to express herself and act on her dreams.

Janelle is another round, dynamic character whose story is explored in three chapters. She is smart, empathetic, and a good friend, but she begins the novel very insecure due to her weight. At first, she is fixated on her classmates’ beauty and envies them. She and some of her classmates make fun of her size; in her first prose section, she refers to herself as “Thighs ‘R’ Us” (53). However, her good friends like Lupe talk her up, and her crush, Devon, admires that she is smart and enjoys reading.

Janelle uses her poetry to come out of her shell and show her classmates who she really is. In her first poem, “inside,” she describes what it’s like to be made fun of for her looks, describing others’ words as “sharp.” However, she compares herself to a coconut, highlighting her inner sweetness. In subsequent chapters, she is affected when the classmates she envies also share poems about their insecurities. She realizes when Judianne rejects her commiseration that bullying is often the result of self-loathing, and girls are enduring the same feelings about their appearance. Janelle has an epiphany in her final chapter when she is concerned about her weight but realizes her classmates are focused on her words, not her looks. Her story represents what is possible when one embraces who they are from the inside out.