Ten Houses Filled with Leaves

Part of a child's maturation is forming a personal identity and, after deciding what ''kind'' of person they want to be, coming to grips with reality both from within and without as they make their way in the world.

Meet Maisi Waverly, a young Black girl who is lighter skinned than most of her counterparts as well as exotically attractive, garnering the attention of both adults and her peers, although sometimes this attention is unwarrantedly negative.

Nevertheless, Maisi seems to form friendships with the most unlikely of people, primarily because she is quite secure with herself and her identity. She refuses to be a party to society's forms of suppression and flaunts her independent and free spirit as she sticks to her morals and takes care of business.

''From the mouths of babes…'' or, in this case, from the lives of babes we can learn so much about being ourselves and becoming comfortable in the skin in which we were born, as shown by Tina Marie Lockhart through the life of Maisi in Ten Houses Filled with Leaves.