The Skin I'm In

Flake, Sharon. The Skin I’m In. Jump at the Sun, 1998. Paperback $5.99 ISBN-10 0-7868-1307-5

What’s it about?

Maleeka Madison didn’t use to hate the dark skin she was born in—but lately, she has been assaulted with taunts about her blackness. Her disfigured teacher Miss Saunders helps her find her voice through her talent for writing.

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Maleeka Madison, a seventh grader being bullied because of her dark skin and because her clothes are hand-sewn by her mother, a very poor seamstress, has a bad feeling inside when she first sees her new English teacher Miss Saunders, who has a large swath of unpigmented skin across her face. Since Maleeka works full time to fit in, the last thing she needs is to be associated with her—which is a danger, since her attracts “strange characters.”  Last year, Maleeka was a good student, a nice kid who flew under the radar—until Caleb, the smartest boy in school began to express interest in her. The girls in her class began to pick on her mercilessly. The bullying escalates until the entire class taunts her. Caleb stops associating with her (which Maleeka finds out later was to protect her, not to insult her), but the torment doesn’t stop. Finally Maleeka takes the initiative to get protection by doing homework for Char, the toughest, meanest girl in her class—who has already flunked seventh grade twice. Char gives her new, stylish clothes, and gives Maleeka a tough-girl confidence. But her attitude begins to rub off on Maleeka, who begins cutting class, getting poor grades and getting in fights. Miss Saunders is undaunted, though, and works patiently with Maleeka, helping her find her voice through her writing, and accept the skin she’s in.

Flake’s debut is stunning in its spare, powerful prose. Maleeka’s voice is realistic, and raw with pain from the death of her father, the depression and grief of her mother, and the constant barrage of insults from her peers. Much of the bullying Maleeka endures is a type of racism, black-on-black racism, which is particularly harsh on women, a topic not often addressed in literature written for the middle school crowd and something that some ethnic groups may be unaware of.  Maleeka makes some incredibly bad choices, but the reader roots for her, just as Miss Saunders does, because she is full of grit, intelligence, and determination.  Her anger at herself for stressing out her mother is particularly poignant. Clearly Maleeka is a very empathic person, despite her tough act.  This book is an amazing character study not only of Maleeka, but of Miss Saunders, a woman so tormented by her disfigurement she feels the need to compensate by being the best dressed, the hardest worker, the most successful person wherever she goes. It’s no wonder this book was awarded the 1999 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent; it is a work of art, and belongs on the shelves of every library serving youth.

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Multi-cultural, Problem Novel, Urban Fiction

Reading level: 4^th grade

Interest level: Grades 5-9

Read alikes:

Myers’ Autobiography of My Dead Brother

Wolff’s Make Lemonade

Awards:

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent (1999)

Subjects: Bullying, racism, teachers, self-esteem, African-Americans

Characters:

Maleeka Madison: intelligent, troubled protagonist with a talent for writing, bullied mercilessly for her dark skin and unstylish clothing

Miss Saunders: a disfigured, passionate English teacher who patiently works through Maleeka’s tough exterior

Charlese (Char):  a tough, mean girl who lets Maleeka borrow her expensive clothing in exchange for Maleeka doing her homework assignments for her

Caleb: the smartest, most popular guy in school, likes Maleeka great deal 

Tai: a quirky teacher at McClenton Middle School, friend of Miss Saunders

Joey Pigza Loses Control

Gantos, Jack. Joey Pigza Loses Control. Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2000. Tr. $16.00 ISBN 0-374-39989-1

What’s it about?

Joey Pigza meets his father, who abandoned him when he was in kindergarten, and stays with him for the summer. Joey is eager to please his father, but has Carter really changed?

Find out more: Joey Pigza, who we met in Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, is still wired, but faring much better with his new medication. He and his beloved Chihuahua mix, Pablo, go visit his father for six weeks during the summer. Joey’s dad, Carter, abandoned him several years ago. He struggles with A.D.D., much like Joey, and alcoholism. Carter is bright-eyed with excitement, though, because he has turned his life around. He has a new girlfriend, is coaching a boy’s baseball team, and has a steady job.  Joey, however, notices that his dad talks and talks and talks without allowing response. He drinks one beer, then two (because the first one got lonely), then sneaks the rest of his girlfriend’s beer. This is not a big deal, though; beer is “soda pop for grown-ups.” Joey’s grandmother (the one that raised him, berated him and locked him in a fridge once upon a time) warns Joey that Carter really hasn’t changed.  In fact, Carter goads Joey into throwing out his medication patches, telling him that it is a crutch to take medication.

Joey Pigza Loses Control is bleaker than Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. The alcoholism of Joey’s mother in the first book seemed much more under control than that of Carter.  There are some scarily observant moments from Joey, such as the time that he felt that he was a different Joey with different adults. He feels like taking risks when with this father, whose edgy energy makes Joey feel more wired. There are a lot less laughs in this sequel than in the first book.  Not only is Joey on the edge, but his father is trying to push him over it, insisting that controlling Joey’s ADD is mind over matter. In Joey Pigza Loses Control, Joey is out of control, but the adults in his life help him to stay safe. With the exception of Joey’s grandmother, all the adults had his best interests in mind. In Joey Pigza Loses Control, the real out of control person is Carter, who destabilizes Joey and makes his approval conditional on Joey’s winning pitching record. The chaos Joey experiences is frightening, but more frightening is the knowledge of what his ex-con alcoholic father might be capable of. Recommend this book to fans of gritty realistic fiction. This book is not a stand-alone. Reading the first book is necessary to understand why Joey needs his patches, and the back-story of Joey’s grandmother, mother and father.

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Problem Novels

Reading level: 5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 4-9

Subjects: Attention-Deficit Disorder, Parents, Relationships, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Baseball, Father-son relationships

Awards:

Newbery Honor, 2001

ALA Notable Children’s Book, 2001

Read-alikes:

Crawford’s Carter Finally Gets It

Van Draanen’s Swear to Howdy

Characters:

Joey Pigza—the protagonist, who wants to give his father a second chance

Carter—Joey’s father, who makes a re-appearance in Joey’s life, and claims to have turned his life around

Fran—Joey’s mother, who is nervous about leaving Joey with his father

Leezy—Carter’s new girlfriend

Grandma—Joey’s Grandmother, now ill with emphysema, although she persists to smoke.

Series information:

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (1998)

What Would Joey Do? (2002)

I am Not Joey Pigza (2007)

Raw Reality of Survivor's Guilt and Self-Mutilation in Willow

Hoban, Julia. Willow. Dial Books, 2009. Tr. $16.99 ISBN 978-0-8037-3356-5

What’s it about?

Willow Randall has terrible guilt for the accident that killed her parents, and secretly numbs her pain by cutting herself. Enter Guy, who cares deeply for Willow—and is the only person who knows her secret.  

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Willow is a compelling look inside the mind of a tormented 17 year old who is trying to cope with a life-altering tragedy. A year ago, her parents hand her the keys after they drank too much wine at dinner. The heavy rain is too much for an inexperienced driver with just a learner’s permit to handle, and a horrific accident takes the lives of Willow’s parents. Physically, Willow is unharmed. Mentally, she is torn apart by her guilt and grief, thinking of herself as a killer. She moves in with her older brother, David, a college professor with a wife and baby. Instead of turning to each other for support, the siblings each deal with their grief separately. Unable to cope with the horror of the accident, and the strained relationship with David, Willow cuts herself with razor blades. Then Willow meets Guy, a sweet boy who shares her interest in anthropology and obscure books. Guy is perceptive, and discovers her secret. He is understandably horrified, but because he cares for Willow, he tries to help her.  Willow is eventually able to reach a turning point, and begins to deal with her grief instead of numbing it out with self-mutilation.  

Hand Willow to readers of problem novels.  This is a helpful book to recommend to tweens and teens grades 7 and up who have dealt with self-mutilation or have friends or family members struggling with this problem. This is also a good choice to hand someone dealing with survivor guilt. I’d be careful to assess the maturity level of a potential reader before recommending this title to someone on the younger end; this is a painful subject, and a Hoban doesn’t sanitize the ugliness of cutting and the horror of Willow’s grief.  Hoban does a good job of conveying the seriousness of this problem, and the reader will empathize with her extreme coping mechanism. There is way too much that occurs in Willow’s thoughts, however, which are distractingly conveyed in third person present tense. The complex relationship Willow has with her brother is so realistically portrayed, it makes up for the sometimes unconvincing romance between Guy and Willow.  It is hard to believe that Willow would open up so much to Guy so quickly, and Guy really seemed more like a therapist than a boyfriend. At the same time, it does make sense that a meaningful relationship is be one of the catalysts Willows needs to deal with her bottled-up grief. 

Genre label: Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Problem Novel, Romance

Reading level: 5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 7 & up

At the library I work at, I was initially surprised by the popularity of this book with older pre-teens and young teens. Sadly, this topic may speak personally to more kids in this age group than adults would imagine.  

Read-alikes:

Patricia McCormick’s Cut

Cheryl Rainfield’s Scars

Gayle Forman’s If I Stay

Hannah Moskowitz’s Break

Subjects/themes: Cutting, Guilt, Death, Accidents, Relationships, Grieving, Orphans, Secrets, Survivor Guilt

Character name/descriptions:

Willow—Troubled protagonist, cuts herself to numb the pain of her involvement in the deaths of her parents

David—Willow’s older brother, a college professor and her guardian

Guy—Willow’s love interest and the only person who knows about her cutting

  

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key

Gantos, Jack. Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. 154 pages. Tr. $16.99, ISBN 978-0374336646; Paperback $6.99, ISBN 978-0312623555  (reissue by Square Fish, 2011)

What’s it about?

Latch-key kid Joey Pigza’s brain is wired differently. Even with medication, his antics turn harmful.  Will his A.D.D. ever get under control?  

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Joey Pigza, who suffers from severe ADHD was abandoned by his parents in kindergarten and raised by his manic, abusive grandmother. His alcoholic mother re-emerges in his life, but can’t provide him as much attention as he needs. Compounding the problem, Joey’s medications don’t work throughout the day, leaving him, in Joey’s words, a “wired-up mess.” Wired Joey can’t think straight, and his judgment becomes questionable, making him very accident prone. He swallows his key, jumps off a roof, and loses a fingernail when he decide to sharpen it after he finished sharpening pencils. When Joey causes an accident that causes a classmate to lose the tip of her nose, he is sent to a special education school where he meets a caring case worker, Special Ed, who eventually is able to get him on appropriate medication. 

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key is sometimes a hard read because of the dangerous and upsetting situations Joey, who the reader will be rooting for, gets himself into. He is a likable, kind-hearted character, even though he poses a real challenge to all the adults in his life. Gantos gave Joey a powerful and believable voice. Joey’s narration is rollicking and jittery, just like Joey. This give the audience a unique perspective of how it must feel to be constantly wired, and not entirely in control of your mind. Even though the subject is grave, Joey’s commentary and comebacks provide some laughs—such as his oft-repeated “can I get back to you on that?”

Genre label: Contemporary Realistic fiction, Problem Novel, Tragicomedy  

Reading level: 5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 4-8

Read-alikes:

Zipper, the Kid with ADHD

The Middle of Somewhere

Carter Finally Gets It

Trout and Me

Subjects/themes: ADHD, special education, abandonment, abuse 

Awards:

National Book Award Nominee (1998)

ALA Notable Children’s Book (1999)

Series information:

Joey Pigza Loses Control (2000)

What Would Joey Do? (2002)

I am Not Joey Pigza (2007)

Characters:

Joey Pigza—the protagonist, abandoned by his mother and father at age 5 and raised by his grandmother. He suffers from severe ADHD

Mrs. Maxy—Joey’s teacher, who tries to keep Joey grounded

Joey’s Grandma—an abusive care-giver with mental problems of her own