In the book One speck of truth, Caela Carter wrote about Alma, who is a young girl that lost her dad when she was just a baby. She passes many family troubles with her mother and that is one of the most important aspects in the story. Francisco from the book Inside Out came from a really poor family, he is a non-english speaker and that will make him suffer in his first days of school. Differently from Alma he seems to have a good and trustful relationship with his family, Francisco told his parents when he fought with Curtis and they helped him. On the other hand Alma doesn’t even talk to her mother, because she isolates herself. She is also a really dedicated student, her mother values education in an extreme way, giving Alma all the opportunities that she can (sometimes pressuring her daughter). Else, Francisco came from a really poor family that couldn’t offer him a school education since he was a young kid. Both characters are affected by their low power levels, even if they are caused for different reasons, but they interfare in a similar way, making them have a repressed attitude from some specific persons.
Alma’s relationship with her mother is mostly caused by the lack of attention that her mother gives her, she spends many nights at Julia’s house (who is her best friend). On page 28-29 Alma says: “I should be standing with my own mother. Instead, Julia and I flank her mother inside her front door while mine stands on the stoop outside.” That shows that she wishes to spend some time with her mother. On the other hand, Francisco’s family seems to care about him. One example of that is on his first day of school, when his mother bought new clothes for him. We can also notice the respect and admiration that Francisco feels about his dad when he said: “Papá always wore a cap and I did not feel completely dressed for school without it.” There is a huge difference between both relationships, Alma and her mother don’t demonstrate affection, but in Francisco’s case care and love are things that we can observe.
Alma is a very pressured kid, because her mother doesn’t let her make questions and she needs to follow many rules to be a “good girl” according to her mom. Alma always needs to be the best student and play the best music at the piano, but all of that makes her feel her mother doesn’t accept or like the way she is. However, one interesting thing is that instead of feeling uncomfortable at the piano, she actually loves that place. She explains that feeling on page 23, saying: “I sit down at the piano that’s pushed against the wall of our dining room. This is the most peaceful spot in our house for me. It’s the only place I can be myself without hiding.” The piano relaxes her and makes her abstract the daily routine of pressure, but after that she connects the peaceful feeling to the rules and posture of her mother, saying: “Mom loves that I love the piano. Of course she has a whole list of rules about how much I must practice and which pieces I should learn to expand my talent. But I never mind these rules.” Totally different from Alma, Francisco didn’t have the opportunity of going to school before the first grade. In his family the only one who had already studied was his brother (Roberto), so he didn’t suffer all that pressure that Alma did.
In both stories, Francisco and Alma are negatively affected by their low power levels. Their attitudes are controlled by their power conditions, for example: Alma is an only child and she is considered too young to her mother, so she never knows what is happening, or even what happened in her past. That’s because her mother never answers her questions, so that makes Alma curious and that also interferes in her relationship with mother, because she can’t express herself. This explains Alma’s attitude of always thinking she is a ”bad girl” and a bad friend. Like her, Francisco had a really low power level at the beginning of the book. In his case that happened, because he moved to the United States and being a non English speaker he couldn’t communicate with the other students and with the teacher, so starting relationships was really difficult for him. He was lucky to meet a boy in his class that could speak Spanish, so he was able to play and enjoy some moments at school. But at the end of the book, the teacher included him in the class with his drawings (that show that he is very creative) so this opened a “door” for more relationships for him, even with Curtis (who received Francisco’s drawing as a gift).
In both of the books, the main characters pass through many complicated situations, family troubles, language and low power level relationships. Some of them are similar, others are totally different, but Francisco and Alma react in similar ways. They find creative solutions for their problems, like writing questions that she can’t ask, or looking at the images in a book and creating a new story. These characters have similarities and differences, so an interesting thing to do while reading is to compare and contrast traits, relationships, conflicts and more.
