Harbor Me

Harbor Me, by Jacqueline Woodson, is a 2019-2020 Texas Bluebonnet winner and NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work- Youth/Teen.  This book is recommended for 10-14 year old children. This book is a powerful book about six sixth- grade students coming together for healing by confiding in each other. In the ARTT (A Room to Talk) room, is where Haley Anderson (the main character), Esteban, Holly, Ashton, Amari, and Tiago talk about the hard topics of incarceration, race, and immigration throughout the story. Haley, records their stories and then at the end of the story she talks about her own story... Her father's incarceration and how that affects her life. Esteban deals with worry that his father will be taken by the immigration officials and sent to a detention center, Amari shares that since he is black he is not allowed to play with toy guns a the park but his friend Ashton is still able, Ashton is a white boy but a minority in his school which results in physical bullying, Holly wants and struggles  to feel apart of her friends because she is financially well-off, Tiago feels sad because people makes him feel bad for using Spanish. This book was a hard read. I wouldn't recommend unless you really know your students and know that they are mentally prepared to talk about these social issues. It is important to talk about, maturity is really needed.