This could be the best book I've read all year. In the first 200 pages it was okay and then there was a twist that changed everything. I had 100 pages to go until book club tonight and I thought I'd get up early and finish the rest of the book. I didn't quite finish before school started so I had to steal time here and there. I finished it during DEAR time while everyone was reading and when DEAR was over I said to my class, "Can we just sit still and be sad for a moment?" Of course they wanted to know why....and it wasn't something I could even explain. I think the fact that there is so much math involved in the storyline caused me to suspend any idea that it was nothing but realistic fiction....only to realize I had been totally fooled!
I just loved this book. It is one I'd read again. It would be interesting to read it a second time to see what subtle hints were given that I totally missed. It isn't one I'd read aloud to my students though. There are some tough topics. However, it would be great for middle and high school, for sure.
Everyone in book club loved it too.
It made me wonder what I would put in a time capsule to represent myself. This is going to take some thought!
The author is from Edmonton too! Pam H sent the author a message saying, "This would make an AMAZING one act play! Let's collaborate!"
Favorite quotes:
p. 254 As you grow up, you're going to hear a lot of opinions about the right way to be Black. A lot of people will tell you to turn the other cheek or stay in our lane or just be quiet, stay in the neighborhood where everyone looks like you. But you deserve a world where the way you're treated is based on your character and not your skin color. And you're allowed to fight for that world; you're allowed to make waves.
...if I'm being honest with you, Grit, I'm tired. I'm tired of the way we've been treated in Pineview. I'm tired of the odd looks and the suspicion and the disrespect. I'm even more tired of turning on the news and seeing the way Black people are treated everywhere. I'm tired of making a political statement just by existing, just by being black. And I think that's okay. Tired is okay. I don't have to Make A Statement every minute of every day. I can love myself and love my family and be a human and that's enough.
p. 293 I nod, because I will do anything for him. Becaause he is my favorite person in the universe. Because if fathers can be friends, he is mine, and even if they can't, he is mind.
p. 294 on losing someone through death:
....I'll always be one of you, but I can't be here the way I want to be. Remember what I s aid that day when we looked at the stars? People get closer or farther away, so you have to be strong and wonderful and wise and silly and everything you are without me. You have to be that Statgirl. That's what will make me happiest of all.
I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my dress.
p. 305 Now, Mom says something I don't expect. "I'm more than just sad. I'm determined. I'm resilient. I'm angry too. Angry as heck that someone would hurt your afther for such a stupid reason or for absolutely no reason at all. Because he never thought we belonged there, so of course we were in his house. I'm angry that whatever happens to the man who did this will not be nearly as bad as what has happened to us. I'm not going to tell yo uthat it will get any less painful or any less hard, but we will get through it.
p. 307....she whispers, "You don't have to be strong, baby. We'll do it weak. We'll limp and hurt and take everything one day at a time....
Setting
Neighborhood called Pineview - the "nice" part of Elderton (p. 7)
Characters
Mom (Bim)
Dad (Jar p. 131)
Lo (little sister)
Baby Z (baby due in months)
Jeremiah Woods (Dad's BFF)
Mrs. Sorensen (neighbor who always just walks right in p. 14)
Kemi (cousin)
Dia (Chinese American friend)
Grandma (speaks Yoruba....Nigerian language)
Aunt Miriam - a feelings doctor (psychologist?)
Ty - Kemi's twin who died (p. 55)
Lois! (waitress at Patricia's diner) p. 90
Uncle Jere - surgeon
Uncle Steve
Jen - oldest cousin
Goodreads says:
A heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever.
Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5 .5 trillion, and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.
But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84. 7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.
But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?
With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi's whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye.
No comments:
Post a Comment