Literary Essay

The Safe Way Through

By: Emily Perry

Racism, unfairness, scary situations, mean people, bad teachers. These are only some of the things that Kitty deals with in the book Something to Hold by Katherine Schlick. You may be thinking that these are some difficult problems for an 11 year old, but throughout the book Kitty stands up for what she believes in and does what she thinks is right without other people getting too mad at her. Kitty’s problems began when she and her family moved to a new town on an indian reserve. Being one of the only white kids, Kitty slowly makes friends. As she gets to know one girl, Jewel, she starts to realise how badly she is being treated because of her skin color. Kitty tries to help the problem by getting other people involved in stopping the problem, but nobody believed that the problem existed, or they thought it was impossible to stop. Throughout the book Kitty stands up for what she believes is right and always does her part in stopping the problems in her town. Then one day, the people she was trying to convince believe her after seeing it with their own eyes and help Kitty the rest of the time.  I think this book shows that standing up quietly for what you believe in is better than fighting for what you believe in.

In the middle of the book, Kitty stands up quietly by telling her mom about all of the problems she had been seeing. Her mom believes her and forces her to tell the police everything she knows. “Mr. Wewa encourages me with a nod. ‘Something happened at the game,’ I say, ‘To Raymond, before he threw the ball at that kid.’ I tell him about Walter standing behind the backstop yelling mean things at Raymond. And more - about the beating and the government check and everything I know...” pg. 169. When Kitty is done, Mr Wewa doesn’t believe that the problem exists because of the little proof that she had. Although Kitty didn’t get what she wanted, she did what was right by standing up for her friends. Had she fought for what she wanted, she may have gotten in trouble. Therefore, in this situation, Kitty shows a great example of how standing up for what you believe in is better than fighting for what you believe in.

In the beginning of the book, when Kitty first starts to realise the racism and unfairness in their town, she fights for her belief about a song her class was singing in school by questioning her teacher about it. “I nod, ‘But Mr. Nute’ - I flail around for a way to put this - ‘ it’s about you me and franklin...  I’ve got to spit it out. ‘The song’s only about us.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ Mr. Nute ask. And then his eyes narrow.” pg. 88. Kitty stops asking questions after Mr. Nute gets really mad at her and sends her to the principal's office. If Kitty hadn’t stopped, she would have gotten into even more trouble than she already was in. This shows that fighting for what you want is more difficult than standing up quietly and waiting patiently, because Kitty only hurt herself when she was sent to the principal's office.

At the end of the book, Kitty stands up for Jewel again, when the two girls are left alone at the camp Jewels family is hiding at from Walter, Jewel’s evil stepfather. But Walter finds the camp and Kitty and Jewel are stuck hiding behind a tree. After a while, Jewel stands up in order to protect Kitty. This is how Kitty reacts. “There’s nothing to stop him from hurting her. But maybe he won’t in front of me. And I’m to scared to stay here by myself. I take a deep breath and get up too.” pg. 203. At that moment the police came driving by and saw what Walter was doing the the girls and stopped him. This shows that standing up for what you believe in is better than fighting for what you believe in. Eventually, Kitty got what she wanted, and she got it the safe way, without getting others mad or hurting herself.

The way I look at this is that quietly influencing people will make a difference slowly, whereas loudly fighting for what you want could lead to bad things. Although this method takes patience, it’s the safe way through, because it allow you to persuade others in a non threatening manner.