Piecing Me Together Hardcover – February 14, 2017

Piecing Me Together is one of those books that gives me...thoughts. Of course, all good books make you think in some way, even if they primarily entertain you. But Piecing Me Together is one of those where, if I don't get the thoughts out, they're going to stay tingling in my hands and elbows and chest until I get heartburn and start to feel that my skin is the only thing keeping me from going everywhere at once.Ah-heh-hem.I didn't actually set out to read this book. I'm in my thirties, it's a YA novel, and I feel like I should be "too old" for YA. But the summary fascinated me when I first found it a year ago. And then, after the death of George Floyd, I reached out to a couple of black friends, asking them to help me understand, because I want to get beyond "I have black friends." Being a bookworm, having a physical disability that means I can't drive or do many activities, reading also felt like a good way to do this. So here I am.I have to say, I'm still a bit gobsmacked. The book itself, as a book, is great. Jade Butler is an authentically teen character. I wasn't her growing up, but I probably passed girls like her in the halls every day and just never knew it because well, we were all solving our own problems. I love Jade's voice, the way she loves art, and the way she stands up for herself. She won't stand for anyone feeling sorry for her, even if it means giving up "opportunities." Because after all, if you don't make the opportunity, whose opportunity is it? Whose conscience is being salved? Who is benefiting?And that's where Jade and I intersect. I'm white--let's just say it, porcelain. Fair Irish. Southern conservative family. With those stats, you might think I'm the enemy of the average black person--and maybe I am. I've sure felt like it before, even though I despise racism, even though I love gospel music and have black friends and all that. (Because, SO WHAT). But, I was also a highly gifted student who grew up with cerebral palsy--and I still have cerebral palsy. And I was offered a lot of "opportunities" that translated meant, "Let's fix you." Other girls got to go to New York and Gettysburg and the Dominican Republic; I was considered privileged to get to go to Gatlinburg, TN (a few hours away, with family, with supervision) or get to go to Taco Bell with a "mixed-ability" group on a school day. ("Mixed ability" because the others were cognitively/mentally disabled, and allowed or encouraged to treat me as a person to "care for," like correcting how I ate). So when those types of things happened to Jade...no, I'm not black. But I got that tingly heartburn sensation.As for the microaggressions Jade experienced, especially with Ms. Weber and Mr. Flores, and the reaction--or lack of reaction--from Sam? Well, OOF! Because on the one hand, again, I can identify on some level. But on the other, as a white woman, I have either said or thought, "Not everything is about race" or "Why is everything about race?" Well, now I know. It's the same reason I get mad when I hear, "Everything is about disability to her." It's because you can't take your skin off, dang it. And I applaud Sam for recognizing she has a lot to learn.I don't know how to solve the racial, ability-based, or other issues our country is facing right now. What I do know is that it involves listening to voices like Jade's and Lee Lee's. It involves appreciating, and listening to, the art and the writing and the stories found in everyone. It involves getting beyond the silly veneers of mentorships and clubs like Woman to Woman, and being real. Lee Lee's poem at the end, for instance--if that doesn't do something to you, I don't know what will.Kudos to Renee Watson for writing a wonderful book and helping me understand a bit better. Kudos to Miss Jade Butler as well. We need more books like this...if only the authors could write them fast enough.

Hasna JornaBook Review"Piecing me together," a young adult novel by Renee Watson, tells the story of jade, a Portland, Ore., high school student with - her words - cold skin and hula-hoop hips. Jade has won a scholarship to St. Francis, a private school that's mostly white. This novel is a timely and powerful story about a teen girl from a poor neighborhood striving for success, from acclaimed author Renée Watson. Jade is a lovely, lovely character for many reasons. She is an artist and she makes these beautiful collages from scraps of other people’s trash, and we’ll talk about that hopefully little more todayjade believes she must get out of her neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother says she has to take every opportunity. And also her mom is desperate for her to make close friends at the school but for her, she is just want to kind of keep her head down and plough through. And she talks a lot about sort of knowing she has to take advantage of the “opportunities” that this school has to offer. Jade feels bad in her school classroom, because her all white classmate mother are women who hiring the housekeeper but her mother is a women who worked for house keeper. She lived with her mother, her father doesn’t live with them her father live with his girlfriend. But he like jade lots, he said once a time that jade is his everything as his daughter. Every day jade rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn’t really welcome, like an invitation to join women to women, a mentorship program for ‘’ at risk’’ girls. Just because her mentor is black and graduated from the same high school doesn’t mean she understands where jade is coming from. She’s tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. As a black girl live in white area jade is insulting by white people, for example one day jade went to a store with her best friend sam and she was looking for something but the store employed come to her and ask her why her bag is like that that mean she guess jade is a thief she stole something from the store, but she didn’t. And white customer are holding lots of thing their hands but the employ didn’t blame them for anything. This was totally unfair that they did with jade.as the novel comes to a close, jade is learning she has the power to stand up for herself and it feels good to do so. She also learns she has the ability to overcome the stereotypes against blacks and that she has to make a commitment to see anything through to the conclusion, including friendships. This book is all about overcoming to rise, because she is trying to figure out who she is and how to feel more whole in her life as she is sort of collaging her own life together.I think one of the reasons i loved this book so much is that, as a white woman in the world, a book like this gives me the opportunity to step into the shoes of somebody having a very different experience from my own. I recommended this book for readers because they will know for their future how to how they and their community stitch them back together each day, like how jade and her community stitch her back together each day

IT'S A GOOD READING, AND IT TEACHES GIRLS TO NEVER GIVE UP ON THEIR DREAMS .

Once I purchased the novel, I couldn't wait to start reading it and when I started, I found it somewhat sad but interesting at the same time. I admire the character and how determined she is to go forward in life despite challenges and struggles at the same time. It is worth reading this novel.

I liked the way the author wove the story. I love the message of empowerment to young people of any orientation.

Jade goes to a private school on a scholarship and doesn't feel the connection with other students that she feels to students from her local community. Particularly her best friend Lee Lee, they just get each other without words.One day on the long bus journey to school Sam gets on, clearly she goes to the same school as Jade, and the two girls become friends. While Sam and Jade's new friendship is developing, Jade is selected for the Woman to Woman programme and she learns and is encouraged to speak out against injustice and to be true to herself.This is a story about a young woman who recognises the power of opportunity and education, whose ideals and friendships are challenged as she learns about what she's prepared to accept and who she wants to be. It's a story about speaking up and speaking out and about the importance of listening and recognising that one person can make a difference.

Oh, how I loved this book.Jade's voice is SO strong and compelling and real. I loved, loved, loved her in all of her strength and vulnerability and passion. I can't imagine anyone who's ever felt like a misfit in their own surroundings *not* identifying with her deeply emotional - and uplifting - story! I loved all the other characters too, and the complexity of their relationships. I loved the way that Jade learned to trust in her own voice and speak up for herself by the end of the book.The political themes are really powerful and moving, but most of all, Jade's own voice just grabbed me so hard from page 1, and I was rooting for her all throughout the book - which was so absorbing, so gorgeously written and so infused with intense emotion, I could NOT put it down. I devoured the whole thing within a day, and I know I'll be re-reading it many, many times in the future (and giving it as a gift, too).I fell absolutely in love with Renée Watson's writing in this book, and now I want to read everything else she's written, too!Highly, highly recommended.