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• Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman is a novel set in a dystopian Britain in which society is divided by racism.

• Dark-skinned Crosses are privileged in society over the light-skinned noughts.

• Against the odds, the main characters, Sephy and Callum, fall in love across the divide which leads them into danger.

• Malorie Blackman was inspired by real events from history and her own life when she wrote this novel.

Watch the video below to learn about the plot, characters and themes in Noughts & Crosses.

The novel starts with Sephy, a Cross, and Callum, a nought, as young children playing together. Callum’s mother, Meggie McGregor, loses her job as a nanny because she fails to lie on behalf of her employer, Jasmine Hadley, who is Sephy’s mother.

The timeline then jumps to three years later when Callum and Sephy are teenagers. They have kept their friendship a secret because their society does not approve of noughts and Crosses being friends. They kiss on the beach. Callum is due to start at the same school as Sephy. Up until this point, schools for noughts and Crosses have been completely segregated.

Callum’s first day at school begins with a riot as Cross parents try to stop the nought children from joining the school. The pupils and teachers at the school also react violently. Sephy is told off for trying to sit next to Callum in class and beaten up for being a "blanker-lover" – an offensive term for Crosses who are friendly towards noughts.

One night, Callum returns home to find his family fighting. Callum’s father, Ryan McGregor, explains how Callum’s sister Lynette and her Cross boyfriend were almost beaten to death because of their relationship three years ago. Lynette has never recovered and fantasises that she is a Cross. Later that night, Lynette takes her own life by walking in front of a bus. At Sephy’s house, Sephy’s mother overdoses on pills but survives.

Callum learns that an organisation called the Liberation Militia is planning to bomb a shopping centre. Realising that Sephy is at the shopping centre, Callum rushes to rescue her.

It is revealed that Jude, Callum’s older brother, planted the bomb. Ryan falsely confesses in order to save his son and is sentenced to death. After Ryan dies trying to escape prison, Jude persuades Callum to join the Liberation Militia. Sephy leaves to go to boarding school. She writes to Callum asking him to run away with her but he does not open the letter in time.

Years pass, Sephy returns home and is taken as a hostage by Callum and the Liberation Militia. Callum and Sephy realise they still love each other and Sephy escapes.

Months pass. Callum is lying low in case the police find out that he was involved in Sephy’s kidnapping. Sephy discovers she is pregnant with his child. Callum is caught and sentenced to death. The last thing he hears before his death is Sephy shouting she loves him.

The novel ends with the announcement of the birth of their daughter, Callie Rose.

Did you know?

The ����ý TV adaptation of Noughts & Crosses is slightly different from the book. For example, the TV series has characters who don’t appear in the book, like journalist Kolawale, who is played by the musician Stormzy.

Activity

In the world of the novel, people with dark skin took power and enslaved people with white skin causing society to split into two groups. Those with white skin are called noughts and those with dark skin are called Crosses.

Crosses

Persephone Hadley
‘Sephy’ is one of the two main characters in the novel. Sheltered by her wealthy, privileged Cross background, she only realises the injustice of the society she lives in through her friendship and love for Callum.

Kamal Hadley
Kamal is Sephy’s father. He is a wealthy, powerful politician who believes that noughts and Crosses should stay separated.

Jasmine Hadley
Jasmine is Sephy’s mother who is unhappily married to Kamal and is addicted to alcohol. She attempts to take her own life. She tries to help Ryan, Callum’s father, by secretly paying for a lawyer when he is arrested.

Minerva Hadley
'Minnie' is Sephy’s older sister. She and Sephy get on very well and she reveals Sephy’s pregnancy to their parents.

Noughts

Callum McGregor
Callum is the other main character and shares the story with Sephy. He loves Sephy but is frustrated by her ignorance of the terrible difficulties that noughts face.

He feels conflicted, and the loss of his sister and father pushes him to anger and violence. He is put to death for the crime of kidnapping and raping Sephy, even though she consented to having sex with him.

Ryan McGregor
Ryan is Callum’s father. He tries to protect his family and dies after attempting to escape prison for a crime committed by his other son, Jude.

Margaret McGregor
'Meggie' is Callum’s mother. She tries to keep her family together.

Jude McGregor
Jude is Callum’s brother. He is angry at the inequality he faces. He joins the Liberation Militia and uses violence to try to force society to change.

Lynette McGregor
Lynette is Callum’s sister. She becomes lost in a fantasy world after a violent attack and eventually takes her own life.

Did you know?

In the novel Crosses is always written with a capital ‘C’ and noughts is always written with a lower case ‘n’. This is to show that Crosses are more important than noughts.

Activity

Themes are the main ideas that appear repeatedly in a novel. Some of the important themes in Noughts & Crosses are:

• Racism and discrimination
• Love and relationships
• Growing up

The novel is set in an alternative reality where people with dark skin have colonised Europe. In this alternative history, people with white skin were enslaved. Even though slavery no longer exists in the novel, society is segregated and white people are discriminated against.

The novel shows how racism and discrimination destroys friendships, families and societies.

Noughts & Crosses is a story about love.

The relationship between Callum and Sephy is doomed from the start because the racist society in which they live forces them apart.

However, by the end of the novel, Callum is prepared to die for love and Sephy is prepared to give up everything to keep their child.

At the beginning of the novel Sephy is 13 years old and Callum is 15 years old. Throughout the novel, they must both grow up very quickly.

At first, Sephy doesn’t understand the inequality faced by noughts in society. For example, she is determined to sit with Callum in school and does not realise how dangerous her actions are for them both.

As the novel progresses, Sephy becomes more aware of racism in society and tries to change it with peaceful protest. She uses her voice to speak up about her love for Callum, whereas he is pushed towards violence.

Writers choose words and phrases carefully when they write. Readers can look closely at texts to think about how and why the writer made these choices.

New vocabulary

In dystopian novels, a new vocabulary is often invented to create the idea of a different society or culture. In Noughts & Crosses, the characters use these words:

Through this vocabulary, Blackman shows how words have power, particularly the power to hurt.

Structure refers to how written text is organised – the way the story is ordered and shaped.

Dual narrative

The novel is structured with an alternating dual narrative. This means that one chapter is narrated in the first person from Sephy’s point of view and the next is narrated in first person from Callum’s point of view. Only the prologue is in the third person.

Sometimes, Sephy and Callum narrate the same event, but their recollections are completely different. For example, both Sephy and Callum describe their trip to Celebration Park. Sephy remembers it as a “lovely day” but for Callum it is a “train journey from hell”.

Mirroring

Blackman also uses mirroring, which is when events in the novel echo each other. For example, the same night that Lynette McGregor takes her life, Jasmine Hadley attempts to take her life too.

This shows how everyone can be affected by sadness, depression and family tragedy, regardless of whether they are a nought or a Cross.

Blackman's inspiration

In the foreword, Blackman says that she wrote Noughts & Crosses to:

tackle the subject of racism head on.

She drew inspiration from her own experiences of racism as a Black British woman. For example, in interviews, she remembers history lessons in school that failed to mention Black historical figures. She also tells the story of the British train guard who closely inspected her first class ticket on a busy train, and no one else’s.

Blackman was also inspired by the "burning anger" she felt at the murder of the Black British teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, and the subsequent mishandling of the police investigation into his murder.

Stephen Lawrence was murdered by white racists while waiting for a bus in south London. After an investigation, it was found that the Metropolitan police force did not properly investigate the case due to their own racist attitudes and beliefs. This Newsround article explains the events in more detail.

Historical parallels

Many of the events in the novel reflect real historical events.

In South Africa, apartheid was a system for keeping white and Black people separated. It lasted from 1948 to the early 1990s. Under apartheid, white people were privileged above Black people in every aspect of society. Only white people were allowed to vote and Black people were forced to live in poorer areas. Black people and white people were not allowed to marry each other. Schools were segregated and signs were put up declaring many areas for "whites only".

In America, Black and white people were also segregated. Following the American Civil War and the abolition of the slave trade, there were still many people who wanted to keep racist rules and systems. This was particularly the case in the southern states of the USA.

Jim Crow laws denied Black people rights by enforcing segregation and discrimination in southern states.

The Ku Klux Klan targeted Black, immigrant, Jewish and Catholic people in the 1920s.

In 1954, the Brown v Topeka case was a landmark in showing that the Supreme Court was willing to take action to end segregation in America.

This Bitesize article explains more about the fight for civil rights in America.