Shifted

About the Book

About the Book

Mersa's desire to become an urban teen was fully realized when her upper-echelon family agreed to allow her to attend the School of the Performing Arts. Emerging from a life of luxury and structure, Mersa found herself immersed in a vibrant ambience of pop culture and spirit she had ached for. Her dream of exchanging her Jimmy Choo shoes with Timberlands became a tangible reality.
Within this school, Mersa uses dance as a bridge to blend two cultures. However, it was in this atmosphere that she finds herself losing elements of her elitist lifestyle in order to become acceptable in the eyes of her peers. Can she retain the fundamentals of her personality without clashing with the new world, which she longed for in utter fascination? Can she fuse both worlds without losing her identity?
Would Mersa ever understand the depth of her own character through the contributions of both worlds?
Shifted passionately conveys the realistic struggle of the youth in their ever present search for themselves and their place among their peers. It is not only Mersa's introduction to the urban life, but her new found friends' which experience a world unlike their own as well. Mersa’s urban peers consequently experience the suburban life as they also end up blending and mixing within her world.
A thoroughly entertaining story, Shifted forces you into two dynamic worlds that spiral around each other through dance and music yet rarely intertwine. This book will inspire, engage and challenge you but ultimately you will realize what it truly means to shift.
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“Vivid and filled with substance, Shifted captures the essence of teens and life issues. The dance segments are spirited, intense and filled with passion. This book touches on a subject that needs to be brought to the light. The Inspirational quotes through out the pages are uplifting and refreshing. With teen girls of my own this is a must read for all......”
Kym Sellers
WZAK FM/Radio One

“A must read for parents and their teens. Shifted examines a situation that all teens and their parents encounter daily. Hikia uses laughter and honesty to guide a family through life as they learn to "shift.”
Maricia D. C. Johns
Fort Worth Black News, Columnist

“In Shifted, Hikia grapples with the complexities of race, class and identity in the new Black middle class. A remarkable, eye-opening post-race generation coming of age story—where regardless of class, race still matters.”
Bakari Kitwana
Author of The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture

About the Author

Hikia is a black belt and philanthropist who owns and operates her studio, which teaches martial arts, dance, and tumbling for the last eleven years . Hikia lives in Ohio with her family and children, all of whom are black belts and are the inspirations of her writings.