Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman is the tale of a world with a clear class distinction, an alternate universe in which racial and social roles are completely reversed. The world is run by the dark-skinned Crosses and served by the white Noughts—hatefully called daggers and blankers, respectively.




The story is that of Sephy Hadley and Callum McGregor , whose love and friendship struggle against the wide gap between their social standings. Sephy, a Cross, is the daughter of one of the most powerful politicians in the country, while Callum is a low-class “blanker,” and would never have met Persephone had his mother not been working for hers. Still, Sephy and Callum build their friendship in secret hours on a strip of beach and midnight meetings in a rose garden. To them, it doesn’t matter that she is a Cross and he is a Nought; they are both simply people. But when Callum is accepted as one of the first Noughts into Sephy’s all-Cross school, everything changes. And as Callum’s family gets more wrapped up in the violent civil rights terrorist organization known as the Liberation Militia, the stakes get even higher. The story whirls into a fast-paced tale of love and trust and hatred and hurting, race and rights and human nature, all tying into the breathtaking climax; a ending no one could have predicted.