139. SPEAK

Laurie Halse Anderson 1999

Melinda Sordino is a 9th grader with a horrible secret she can't speak of,  a secret that weighs in so heavily on her mind and heart, that it starts manifesting itself as a cascade of both somatic, psychological and behavior problems.  Sadly, this is happening to our children more often than we can imagine, often unrecognized even by the health professionals, teachers, friends and family around them.  This book spotlights such complex issues and is told in a simple, cohesive and absorbing way, and for that, it's on my list. 

'It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.'(3)

'Older students are allowed to roam until the bell, but ninth-graders are herded into the auditorium. We fall into clans: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Suffering Artists, Thespians, Goths, Shredders. I am clanless.... I am an Outcast.'(4)

"You will each pick a piece of paper out of the globe." He walks around the room so we can pull red scraps from the center of the earth. "On the paper you will find one word, the name of an object. I hope you like it. You will spend the rest of the year learning how to turn that object into a piece of art. You will sculpt it. You will sketch it, paper-mache it, carve it. If the computer teacher is talking to me this year, you can use the lab for computer-aided designs. But there's a catch -- by the end of the year, you must figure out how to make your object say something, express an emotion, speak to every person who looks at it.'(12)

"Why is it so hard to make friends here? Is there something in the water? In my old school I could have gone out for the musical and worked on the newspaper and chaired the car wash. Here people don't even know I exist. I get squished in the hall and I don't belong anywhere and nobody cares. And you're no help. You are so negative and you never try anything, you just mope around like you don't care that people talk about you behind your back."(34)

'The doctor stares into the back of my eyes with a bright light. Can she read the thoughts hidden there? If she can, what will she do? Call the cops? Send me to the nuthouse? Do I want her to? I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head.'(81-82)

'I open up a paper clip and scratch the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If suicide is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep? I draw little windowcracks of blood, etching line after line until it stops hurting. It looks like I arm-wrestled a rosebush.'(87)

'I should probably tell someone, just tell someone. Get it over with. Let it out, blurt it out.'(99)

'Mr Freeman: "Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag." He sticks his finger down his throat. "The next time you work on your trees, don't think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage -- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat or your toes curl. Focus on that feeling. When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead inside -- walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or a Mack truck to come along and finish the job. It's the saddest thing I know."'(122)

"Make it bend -- trees are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch -- perfect trees don't exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree."(153)

"But don't expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself."(159)

Farrar Straus Giroux First Edition 1999
198 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
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Reading from My Shelves Project Giveaway Winner:

After assigning the valid entries (comments with e-mail addresses) with the numbers 1-18,  Random.org generated the winner:

    # 4 - Scoot (I have e-mailed you with this news)

Congratulations to Scoot and thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway.