The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara

Not everyone in life has the same ideas of gratitude towards money and material things. For some, $100 dollars could be enough to buy food for a family of five for a year, while for others, $100 is like a small birthday present. This theme of the idea that not everyone lives the same way is evident in the story The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara. Young black children learn the meaning of studying and succeeding in life when an old proper woman, Miss Moore, takes them on a field trip to the richer area of New York City to 5^th Avenue, where they understand how well some people live compared to them. Unwilling to cooperate, the young narrator of the story becomes angry and jealous of all the nice things she sees in the toy store, F.A.O Swartchz, and realizes how little $5 is in the real world compared to at home. Even though I think that this story’s theme is clear, I did not like the slang style of writing it was written in, even though it clearly potrayed Sylvia’s uneducated lifestyle. I also didn’t like the way that the characters disrespected Miss Moore and their opportunity to go into New York City, even though the point that they were very ignorant came across. Overall, I think the children understood the lesson Miss Moore was trying to teach them, even though I wasn’t fond of the actual story.