Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Teen Tuesday and Arc Review: Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes

Image: Boyds Mills Press 

Ordinary Hazards: a memoir by Nikki Grimes. 325 p. Boyds Mills Press October 8, 2019. 9781629798813. (Review of arc courtesy of publisher.)

Teen Tuesday features Ordinary Hazards: a memoir by Nikki Grimes. Resilience is a trait that gets bandied about a lot lately, especially when talking about children. Is it something we are born with or can it be cultivated? Grimes discovered the power of words, of reading them and writing them, to help her navigate the uncertainty of her childhood. She was born in Harlem to a mother who battled mental illness and alcohol and a mostly absent, though revered father. Her older sister, Carol, comforted and protected her as best she could. But there was only so much an older sister could do. There were rats, fights, cousins hooked on heroin, abusive caregivers and the gradual mental deterioration of their mother until she and her sister were removed from her home and placed in foster care. They were kept together for two years, but eventually, the girls were placed in separate homes. 

Grimes is a poet and author of such verse novels as Garvey's Choice, Words with Wings and Planet Middle School and hybrid verse/ prose novels such as Bronx Masquerade and its companion, One Last Word. She's also author of the picture book biography, Barack Obama: son of promise, child of hope. The vivid imagery of her poems takes the reader back to the early 1950s, to dresser drawer beds, to nodding heads, to locked closets, to a train to Ossining and back again. 

She found a good place with the Buchanan family though she missed her sister terribly. She found consolation in writing in notebooks. She wrote poems and bits of observations. After a few years, her mother got her life together and remarried. Nikki had to say goodbye to the Buchanans to return to her mother in Brooklyn and the hope of a new start that nine-year-old Nikki could not trust. 

This memoir in verse was unputdownable. Vivid, raw, compelling, heartbreaking and honest, I often had to remind myself to breathe. She turned out okay, I reminded myself. Improbably, she had the strength to learn and grow despite the traumas. How, when so many in similar situations fall victim? Thank goodness for Nikki Grimes' resiliency. I wish it for each person who struggles. 

Ordinary Hazards is extraordinary and not to be missed if you are a fan of the author, a fan of memoirs in verse or just a thoughtful reader with a heart. 

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