In the following excerpt, Gidley provides a general overview of "Raymond's Run," and offers an interpretation of the characters Hazel and Raymond, particularly with regard to the themes of acceptance and identity.

Toni Cade Bambara's "Raymond's Run" (1971), reprinted in her first collection of tales, Gorilla, My Love (1972), seems an exuberantly straightforward story: the first person, present tense narration of specific events in the life of a particular Harlem child, "a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice," Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker, usually called Squeaky. Squeaky is assertive, challenging, even combative, and concerned to display herself as she is—at one point stressing her unwillingness to act, even in a show, "like a fairy or a flower or whatever you're supposed to be when you should be trying to be yourself". Above all, she's a speedy runner, "the fastest thing on two feet", and proud...