Title: Harbor Me
Author: Jacquelin Woodson
Publication Information: 2018, Puffin Books
Received or Recommended By: 4th and 5th grade ELA teachers at my school
Number of Pages: 176
Level/Target Audience: Grades 5-8
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Date Finished: January 30, 2022
Part of a Series?: No.
First Lines: We think they took my papi. It's over now. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe, even as I sit on my bed in the dying light of the late afternoon, it's beginning again. Maybe Ms. Laverne is looking over the new class list, her finger moving down the row of names.
Last Lines: Me too, I say. And when I rest my head against his arm, when the music circles around us, when my uncle stopped packing and joins in with his guitar and we pool up the song as if we'd always been singing it, what I know for sure now is that this is the end of one of many stories. And also a beginning.
Quotable Quotes:
•But what's unfamiliar shouldn't be scary. And it shouldn't be avoided either.
•None of us really knew about forevers yet. We were still just learning how things could change in a minute--how you could be in the middle of putting plates on the table when the phone rings with bad news.
•I want you to know that we are all flawed, he said. We all have those days when we don't want to show up. Days we just want to forget the world. Doesn't make us bad people. Just makes us people. And time moves as it moves. In a month, this moment won't be anything.
•Tragedy is strange. It takes away. And it gives too.
Teaching Points: Immigration, social justice/injustice, author's craft and structure (use of dialogue), poetry, diverse family structure, character development, social emotional learning, bullying, death and dying
This is the story of Hayley, Holly, Esteban, Tiago, Amari and Ashton--classmates in what appears to be a sub-separate middle school classroom. It's set in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Their endearing teacher, Ms. Laverne, gives them the last hour of Friday to sit in a circle, alone, and "talk." Things start off with an awkward silence among the six classmates who couldn't appear to be more different. Over time, however, they grow into a tight circle of friends who realize that they all share experiencing loss, wanting to belong, seeking to be free, and more importantly, looking to be "harbored" when in need. The group shares their darkest secrets in their ARTT Room (A Room to Talk). This book is a mirror book to young adolescents dealing with incarceration, death of a parent, diverse learning styles, racial identity, socioeconomic imbalances and deportation. This book serves as a powerful window to those that may not directly relate to the characters in this book. Reading this invokes a feeling of empathy during a time when we need it most. When asked why she wrote this book, Woodson notes "I have so many questions. Sometimes, writing is the only way I can answer them."
