What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

Bibliography:

Sones, Sonya. What My Mother Doesn’t Know. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001. ISBN 0689841140

Review and Critical Analysis:

What My Mother Doesn’t Know is yet another of Sonya Sones’s beautiful and powerful novels in verse. Once again, she engages her reader immediately with rhythm and cadence to tell the story of 15-year-old Sophie. Sones “tells / the heart-stoppingly riveting story / of my first love. / And also of my second. / And, okay, my third love, too.” Sophie is a typical teenage girl, trying to figure out her very emotional life. She falls in love with sexy Dylan, then with her “cybersoulmate” Chaz, and finally with Murphy, the geek who turns out to be “Mr. Right-and-a-half.” Sones captures the very essence of teenage girl emotions in this verse novel.

Sones writes this novel using free verse. Each poem is the length of one or two pages, and contains a title that very specifically sums up the poem’s subject. Line lengths and stanza lengths vary throughout the poem. One poem, “I Wish,” is even in the shape of a magic potion - the subject of the poem. Although each poem is different in length and style, they all somehow work together to tell this story. Sones’s rhythm and occasional rhyme make the poems flow together in spite of their differences.

The emotional impact of the poems are what make them stand out. Because poems allow a story to be told with fewer words, the words that are used are powerful. They get straight to the point, and in this case, they get straight to the point of teenage girls and their roller coaster emotions. In the poem, “I Don’t Get It,” Sophie explains how she just can’t understand how she used to think the way Dylan’s (her first love) sneakers always squeaked when he walked was so cute. She says, “I used to feel like I was floating / a few inches above the ground / whever he was squeaking along / next to me. / But now when I hear those / noisy Nikes of his, / I feel like / I want to scream.” She just doesn’t get it - how she can be totally, completely in love one day, and find him so annoying the next.

Sones gives Sophie’s character a voice that is hauntingly familiar to any reader who is either currently a teenage girl or who used to be one. She portrays the nervousness of a first date, the jealousy of good friends, the weird reality of realizing you just don’t like a boy anymore, and the joy of finding what really matters in people. Sophie finds that her true love is Murphy, the geek who is “challenged in the looks department,” and who she’s terrified to tell her best friends about. She realizes that when she first met Dylan, she wanted to kiss him all the time, but the more she got to know him, the less she wanted to kiss him. “But with Robin it’s the other way around. / The more I get to really know him, / the more I want to kiss him.” She decides that’s the way it is with real love - a stunning realization for a teenage girl.

While there are no illustrations in this book, there is no need for them. The poems themselves provide enough imagery for illustrations to form in the reader’s mind. However, the reader will realize at the end of the novel that the book cover illustration is a picture of Murphy’s bulletin board from his bedroom. This adds a very creative, intriguing touch by Ms. Sones.

Poem Used to Support Critical Analysis:

I Don’t Get It

By Sonya Sones

I used to think it was so cute

the way Dylan’s sneakers always

squeaked when he walked.

I liked teasing him about them.

Called them his squeakers.

Loved being able to hear

him coming a mile away.

When I’d hear that squeak of his

heading in my direction,

my heart would dance right up

into my throat.

I used to feel like I was floating

a few inches above the ground

whenever he was squeaking along

next to me.

But now when I hear those

noisy Nikes of his,

I feel like

I want to scream

I want to stomp on his toes.

I want to trip him up and run away.

I just don’t get it.

I Don’t Get It by Sonya Sones is a story in itself about how fickle people can be. It shows how quickly we can fall in and out of love, and how something as simple as squeaky sneakers can be a beautiful noise or a treacherous one depending on our current state of emotions.  

I would introduce this poem by asking students to brainstorm a time when their thoughts of someone or something changed - whether their thoughts went from good to bad, or from bad to good. I would have them write their thoughts down and then I would ask a couple students to share their experiences. Then, I would read them the poem out loud and have them reread it on their own. We would discuss the subject of the poem, what changed for the character in the poem, and why. I would have students use this poem’s form and style to write their own poem about a time when something changed for them. Their poem could be about love, like this one, or it could be about anything else. Their poems should exemplify the change of emotions that took place in their experience.