Welcome to Windows & Mirrors, where we feature books that provide us windows to lives outside our own and mirrors to our shared common human experiences.
Today we are featuring Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson.
When six “special” kids are sent by their teacher to a quiet art room and told they can just hang out and talk for an hour every Friday afternoon, at first they’re stunned and confused. But soon, the art room becomes the ARTT room, A Room To Talk. They talk about “real” things going on in their lives. Like Esteban’s father who was picked up by ICE. Amari’s concerns about racial profiling. Haley’s father’s incarceration.
They become more and more comfortable discussing their fears and feelings. They learn what it means to HARBOR someone, to truly have concern for one another.
Listening to the students supporting each other and asking thoughtful questions was quite uplifting. There were times, though, that the cynic in me would start whispering. This couldn’t really happen. I can’t imagine kids genuinely caring for one anther this way.
Haley was the last student to open up to the group, and in a way, I didn’t want her to. I thought it was okay for her to keep something she felt was personal to herself. But then Jacqueline Woodson worked her magic, and the cynic in me was silenced.
Harbor Me is a heartbreaking, hopeful, and extraordinary story about community, compassion, and understanding that will stick with you for a long time. I finished reading it almost two months ago and can’t stop thinking about the importance of having people in our lives that we can open up to and discuss what touches are hearts and minds. I hope you have people like this group of six in your life.
Harbor Me is a great conversation book, and I highly recommend it for a book club or classroom read. It releases on August 28th. Preorder from your favorite bookstore or request from your local library today! For ages 10+
Jacqueline Woodson is the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and received the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She is the 2014 National Book Award Winner for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award and a Sibert Honor. Her recent adult book, Another Brooklyn, was a National Book Award finalist. She is the author of more than two dozen award-winning books for young adults, middle graders and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include The Other Side, Each Kindness, Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle’s Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and the winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
Posted by Michelle Leonard.
