Lucky broken girl /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York, NY : Nancy Paulsen Books, [2017]Description: 257 pages ; 20 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780399546440
- 0399546448
- 9780399546457
- [Fic] 23
- JUV011030 | JUV015020 | JUV039050
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Juvenile Fiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | J BEHAR (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610023391589 | |||
Standard Loan | Liberty Lake Library Juvenile Fiction | Liberty Lake Library | Book | J BEHAR (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 31421000588682 | ||||
Standard Loan | Metalines Community Library Juvenile Fiction | Metalines Community Library | Book | J BEHAR (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 50610018570148 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Winner of the 2018 Pura Belpre Award!
"A book for anyone mending from childhood wounds."--Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative--based on the author's childhood in the 1960s--a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie's plight will intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time.
Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro's Cuba to New York City. Just when she's finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English--and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood's hopscotch queen--a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie's world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.
In 1960s New York, fifth-grader Ruthie, a Cuban-Jewish immigrant, must rely on books, art, her family, and friends in her multicultural neighborhood when an accident puts her in a body cast.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
Set in 1966, this strongly sketched novel, adult author Behar's first for children, focuses on a 10-year-old Cuban immigrant whose injury forces a prolonged convalescence and rehabilitation. The story begins with Ruthie Mizrahi moving up from the "dumb class" (where she learned English) to the "regular fifth grade class" at her school in New York City. However, a car accident leaves Ruthie so severely injured that she spends almost a year sequestered in her room in a body cast ("My bed is my island; my bed is my prison; my bed is my home"). Readers will get a powerful sense of the historical setting through Ruthie's narration, but the novel is perhaps defined even more by her family's status as immigrants and by its memorable multicultural cast. Some dialogue can ring false ("I am a bit of a hippie. I believe in peace, love, and flower power," explains the tutor sent to work with Ruthie), but Behar successfully juggles several engaging plot threads, and Ruthie's complicated relationship with her mother, given the demands of her care, is especially compelling. Ages 10-up. Agent: Alyssa Eisner Henkin, Trident Media Group. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Behar's debut is a coming-of-age story based on events from her childhood. As a young Jewish girl immigrating to New York City from Castro's Cuba in the 1960s, Ruthie can speak Yiddish and Spanish. She is placed in the remedial class at school to learn English, but she and her Indian friend Ramu are promoted out together. Things in America are looking up for the Behar family until a horrible car accident leaves Ruthie in a body cast with a broken leg. So how can a bedridden girl who must use a bedpan and eat lightly to avoid outgrowing her cast be considered lucky? Confined to her bed, Ruthie learns to cherish personal relationships with her family, teacher, friends, and neighbors. She learns that reading can take the reader to unimagined places and emotions. Behar reads this novel expressively, giving personality to the story's many characters. VERDICT Recommended for its themes of immigration and growing up.-Mary Lee Bulat, Harwinton Public Library, CT © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Booklist Review
Ruthie is excited she's been promoted from the special fifth-grade class, her father bought her a pair of go-go boots, and her family has a brand new Oldsmobile. But on the way back from Staten Island, the Mizrahis are involved in a massive car accident, leaving Ruthie in a full-body cast. As she spends more than a year incapacitated, Ruthie questions life, especially when a neighbor's young son tragically dies, but gradually begins to see the good side of everything. From facing feelings about the boys who caused her accident, to finding herself in painting and writing, to learning that she isn't slow just because English isn't her first language, Ruthie faces everything with an impressive inner strength. Fans of character-driven middle-grade novels, particularly those looking for diverse books, should be easily charmed by Behar's story, which is inspired by her own childhood as a Cuban immigrant in 1960s New York and her first-hand experience of surviving a car crash and spending a year in a full-body cast (an author's note offers some illuminating details).--Tomsu, Lindsey Copyright 2017 BooklistHorn Book Review
In this novel based on the authors childhood, Ruthie is just ten years old in 1966 when she arrives in Queens from Cuba with her little brother and parents. Because she only speaks Spanish, she is placed in the fifth-grade dumb class. Over the next eight months Ruthies English improves, she becomes the neighborhood hopscotch queen, and shes ready to move out of the remedial class. Life is looking up, but then everything comes crashing down when she breaks her leg in a car accident, requiring a full-body cast. Immobile in bed for almost a year, Ruthie is dependent on her mother for everything, and as the months pass, feelings of anger, loneliness, and despair fill her heart. When her next-door neighbor introduces her to drawing and painting, her attention refocuses and she begins to heal emotionally. As she attempts to learn how to walk again, Ruthie finds that friends, family, and the ability to look beyond the present into the future can help turn her brokenness into wholeness. Through an unflinchingly honest first-person narrative, readers are taken through a traumatic period in the authors life (an appended note provides more context and encourages readers to speak up. Tell your story). Effectively scattered Spanish phrases lend authenticity, while period references evoke the 1960s setting. alma ramos-mcdermott (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Kirkus Book Review
In the 1960s, Ruthie Mizrahi, a young Jewish Cuban immigrant to New York City, spends nearly a year observing her family and friends from her bed. Before the accident, Ruthie's chief goals are to graduate out of the "dumb class" for remedial students, to convince her parents to buy her go-go boots, and to play hopscotch with other kids in her Queens apartment building. But after Papi's Oldsmobile is involved in a fatal multicar collision, Ruthie's leg is severely broken. The doctor opts to immobilize both legs in a body cast that covers Ruthie from chest to toes. Bedridden and lonely, Ruthie knows she's "lucky" to be alive, but she's also "broken." She begins collecting stories from her Jewban grandparents; her fellow young immigrant friends, Belgian Danielle and Indian Ramu; her "flower power" tutor, Joy; and her vibrant Mexican neighbor, Chicho, an artist who teaches her about Frida Kahlo. Ruthie also prays and writes letters to God, Shiva, and Kahlo, asking them for guidance, healing, and forgiveness. A cultural anthropologist and poet, the author based the book on her own childhood experiences, so it's unsurprising that Ruthie's story rings true. The language is lyrical and rich, the intersectionalityethnicity, religion, class, genderinsightful, and the story remarkably engaging, even though it takes place primarily in the island of Ruthie's bedroom. A poignant and relevant retelling of a child immigrant's struggle to recover from an accident and feel at home in America. (Historical fiction. 10-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Ruth Behar (www.ruthbehar.com), an acclaimed author of fiction and nonfiction, received the 2018 Pura Belpré Author Award for Lucky Broken Girl , her first book for young readers. She was born in Havana, Cuba, grew up in New York City, and has also lived in Spain and Mexico. An anthropology professor at the University of Michigan, she is the author of The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart , An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba, and Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in between Journeys , and other books about her travels, as well as a bilingual book of poetry, Everything I Kept/Todo lo que guardé . Her honors include a MacArthur Fellows "Genius" Award, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Distinguished Alumna Award from Wesleyan University. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and travels frequently to Miami and Havana.There are no comments on this title.