Lucky Broken Girl - Hardcover

Behar, Ruth

 
9780399546440: Lucky Broken Girl
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0399546448 ISBN 13: 9780399546440
Verlag: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

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.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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.

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Chapter 1: I am not dumb

When we lived in Cuba, I was smart. But when we got to Queens, in New York City, in the United States of America, I became dumb, just because I couldn’t speak English.
      So I got put in the dumb class in fifth grade at P.S. 117. It’s the class for the bobos, the kids who failed at math and read­ing. Also in it are the kids the teachers call “delinquents.” They come to school late and talk back and are always chew­ing gum. Even though they’re considered the bad kids, most of them are nice to me. “Here, Ruthie, have some Chiclets!” they whisper and pass me a handful.
     We aren’t supposed to chew gum in school, so we hold the Chiclets in our mouths until we go outside for recess. Then we chew the Chiclets to death and stick the gook on the bottom of our desks when we come back inside.
     Most of the kids know I’m in this class because I’m from another country, not because I really belong there. Or maybe I do belong there? It’s been eight months since school started and our teacher promised I wouldn’t be in the class for long.
     I am not dumb. I am not dumb. I am not dumb . . .
     The first time I worked up the courage to raise my hand in class was a few weeks after we had arrived from Cuba and I was wearing flip-flops instead of shoes and socks like the other kids. But when our teacher, Mrs. Sarota, called on me to answer the math problem, I didn’t have the words to say the number in English.
     “Well, Ruth?” she asked, staring down at my bare feet. “Do you know the answer or not?”
     I froze and a few kids laughed at me. But not Ramu.
     He’s not dumb either. Ramu is in our class because he’s also from a different country. He comes from India and was raised there by his grandmother, who only speaks a language called Bengali. His parents came to New York first, and after they made enough money, they brought Ramu and his little brother, Avik, here.
     Ramu has picked up English faster than I have because his parents know English and force him to speak it at home. Mine are always yelling, “¡Habla en español!” Especially Mami, who can understand a little English, but is usually too embarrassed to try to speak it.
     Ramu is skinny and bows his head when anyone talks to him. I’m his only friend and that’s because he lives down the hall from us on the sixth floor of our apartment building. Ramu brings Avik to school and I bring my brother, Izzie. Our little brothers are in the same kindergarten class. But af­ter school Ramu and Avik rush straight home. Mrs. Sharma doesn’t let them play with the other children.
     Their apartment smells different from ours. I get whiffs of it whenever we stumble into each other on the way to school. Today when Ramu and Avik stepped into the hall, Izzie and I were waiting for the elevator, and I asked, “What is that perfume?”
     “It’s my mother’s curry,” Ramu says.
     “What’s curry?”
     “A spice. It makes everything taste good, even cauliflower.”
     “That’s amazing.”
     “Yes, it is. And my mother burns sandalwood incense. She says it’s good for meditation and the spirits like it too.”
     “Spirits?”
     “People who used to be alive, when they’re not alive anymore, become spirits. My grandmother says they are all around us. We can’t see them but they watch over us. Of course, spirits don’t eat, but they can smell fragrant things like curry and incense.”
     During lunch at the cafeteria, Ramu offers me something from his lunch box, a pastry filled with mashed potatoes his mother made.
     “It’s a samosa,” Ramu tells me. “Maybe you’ll find it too spicy.”
     Some kids at the table pretend to hold their noses. One says, “It smells like sweaty armpits!”
     “No it doesn’t!” I shout back.
     I take a slow first bite. It tastes like a papa rellena, a crispy stuffed potato my nanny Caro made for me as a snack in Cuba. Eating Ramu’s samosa makes me feel like Caro and Cuba aren’t so far away.
     “It’s real good! Thanks, Ramu.”
     Ramu gives me a shy smile. “Very glad you like it.”
     I beg Mami to make pastelitos de guayaba after Izzie and I get home. The following day, I give Ramu one of the sweet pastries at lunch.
     “The filling is guava fruit. I hope you’ll like it,” I tell him.
     Ramu eats it slowly without saying a word. When he’s done, he finally says, “I like guavas. We have them in India too,” and I sigh.
     “And do you have mangos in India?”
     “Oh yes, drippy sweet mangos.”
     “Just like in Cuba!”
     “I don’t just miss the mangos,” Ramu says. “I miss being able to go outside and play with friends. My mother worries too much about us. She doesn’t let us do anything by our­selves.”
     “I know what you mean. In Cuba, even when I was five years old, my mother used to let me take a taxi all by myself to go visit my aunt Zoila, who used to sew pretty dresses for me. Can you imagine?”
     “Yes, here everything is different,” he says, with a faraway look in his eyes.
     “But maybe one day we’ll both get to taste mangos in India and Cuba!” I say, trying to cheer him up.
     “Oh, Ruthie, I like that you have such an imagination!”

Ramu and I sit together every afternoon after lunch period so we can practice our English.
     Our favorite story is “The Princess Who Could Not Cry,” about a princess who is placed under an evil spell and forgets how to cry. She laughs at everything, even sad things. When they toss away all the toys she loves from the tallest tower of the castle, she laughs, even though she feels terrible.
     A little ragged girl arrives and announces, “I’ve come to help the princess cry.”
     The queen tells her, “Promise me you won’t hurt my daughter.”
     The little ragged girl curtsies and replies, “I promise, Your Majesty, I will bring no harm upon your daughter. I just want to help her.”
     She goes into a room with the princess and draws two on­ions out of her bag.
     “Let’s peel these onions,” the little ragged girl tells the princess.
     As the little ragged girl and the princess pull apart the layers of the onions, the tears start pouring from both their eyes.
     That is how the princess learns to cry!
     The evil spell is broken,...

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Verlag
Nancy Paulsen Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2017
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0399546448
ISBN 13 
9780399546440
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Buchbär
info@buchbaer.de

Weberstr. 67
Osnabrück
49084
Deutschland

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