Are You Nobody Too?
$17.99
| Title | Range | Discount |
|---|---|---|
| Trade Discount | 5 + | 25% |
- Description
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Description
After years of discomfort as the only Chinese student at her private middle school, Emily transfers to Chinatown’s I.S. 23 for 8th Grade and ends up feeling more disconnected than ever. In this coming-of-age novel-in-verse, will Emily be able to find her way or will she lose herself completely?
After a year of distance-learning, Emily Sofer finds her world turned upside down: she has to leave the only school she’s ever known to attend a public school in Chinatown. For the first time, Emily isn’t the only Chinese student around…but looking like everyone else doesn’t mean that understanding them will be easy–especially with an intimidating group of cool girls Emily calls The Five.
When Emily discovers that her adoptive parents have been keeping a secret, she feels even more uncertain about who she is. A chance discovery of Emily Dickinson’s poetry helps her finally feel seen. . . but can the words of a writer from 200 years ago help her open up again, and find common ground with the Five?Tina Cane grew up in downtown New York City, and she draws much of her creative inspiration from her experiences as a city kid. The founder-director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI, Tina was also the poet laureate of Rhode Island, where she lives with her family, who are a major source of inspiration.I’m Nobody
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Ms. Franklin wrote on the whiteboard
Um, you’re Ms. Franklin the class laughed
And you already know who we are!
That was back in seventh grade
at the Meadowlake School where Ms. Franklin
smiled and swung her long red hair back over
her shoulder before reading us this poem
about a frog in a bog she said was about
being humble not seeking attention
She also made some connection
to social media how everyone wants
to be liked or seen all the time but how
that’s not the meaning of life how true happiness
comes from inside and from relationships
I Understood
What Ms. Franklin meant at the time
but it really made sense to me once I started
going to I.S. 23 where I want to be seen
but also wish I were a little bit invisible
like a lunar eclipse fully present
but also masked by shadow
It Should Have Been Easy
To respond to Ms. Franklin’s writing prompt
about What it means to be person but it wasn’t
I don’t remember what I wrote or if I even wrote
anything at all I do remember a strong feeling
Rising inside of me like my heart
was full but not in a joyful way
I couldn’t think of what to say
my head felt heavy as if filled with lead
my hands got sweaty just holding my pen
My palms smelled metallic like they did
when I was little after swinging on the monkey bars
in Washington Square Park back when life
felt less complex just one hand after the other
after the next the other one after that
Fact
One interesting fact about me is that
I learned to read when I was three
not because I am a genius but because
I was afraid of animals the stuffed kind
with cold button eyes that stared at me
as I lay in my playpen or crib
Their plush fur and floppy ears
didn’t comfort me the way my parents did
so Mom and Dad put books in my bed instead
and I clung to them the way other kids
cuddle teddy bears bunnies and giraffes
Books
Each night I’d fall asleep
with a book tucked under my cheek
Yum Yum Dim Sum or some board book
about Lunar New Year or how to do kung fu
anything Chinese because even then
my parents were trying to show me
how to be more how I looked
Words
My parents still laugh
about the first time they saw me
turning pages with my chubby thumbs
sounding out words like
Cat Mat Sat Hat
in books by Dr. Seuss
I was only three but they could see
I was teaching myself how to read
Baby Like Me
It blew my mind! Mom always says
It blew everyone’s mind! Dad always
chimes in it’s true not many people
know a child who learned to read
at the age of three especially an adopted baby
like me who spent her first months
hearing Chinese in an orphanage in Beijing
Someplace Far Away
Even today we three laugh about the time
my parents first saw me swaddled
in a red silk quilt pumping my plump legs
like I was biking to the moon or someplace
far away as New York the city where
I have lived ever since Mom and Dad
brought me home from China
Mooncake
That was back when I still had rosy cheeks
round as the mooncake I find waiting for me
on a plate a Post-it stuck to its rim:
See you at 8!
xo Mom
On days when she has a late meeting
my mom always leaves me something sweet
from the deli on the corner or from her favorite
bakery in Chinatown Hop Wen close to
the Community College of Lower Manhattan
where she teaches American literature
Keeper
Flicking Mom’s note into the trash
I rip open a fresh package of Oreos
kick my Dr. Martens off toward the corner
of the kitchen and call for Keeper
It’s a long minute before I hear
Keeper’s tags jingle faint like
a distant wind chime as he grunts
to get up from his bed by the bathroom
his brittle claws clicking across
the wide planks of our soft wood floor
Here, Keeps
I whistle shoving a cookie too fast
into my face I am starving! I think
then wince as the rough Oreo edge
scrapes the roof of my mouth
Here, Keeps I repeat worrying the scuff
with my tongue while he waddles over
tail ticking slow as a metronome his whole body
winding down like a worn-out clock
Cookie
Keeper snuffles down the cookie I hold out
in a single gulp his watery brown eyes
widen with surprise from the sudden
rush of sugar before he shuffles over
to his other bed beneath the kitchen table
Old as he is Keeper is still the only dog we know
able to eat cocoa and not die our whole family
jokes it’s the Oreos that are keeping him alive
but we don’t laugh as hard about that one
as we used to careful now about not jinxing him
Spent by the effort Keeper closes his eyes
and sighs fluttering the cloth above his head
with a puff of warm breat h as his ears twitch
their way into the drift of a dream
Keeper and Me
Keeper and me share a lot of things
like pillows and cookies and when
no one’s looking dinner but that
happens less and less frequently
these days Keeper mostly sleeps
and me I am usually busy dealing
with life at my new school
Keeper and Me
Keeper and me share a lot of things
like how we got our names mine came
from Emily Bronte my mom’s favorite author
and Keeper was named for Emily Bronte’s dog
A loyal mastiff said to be stout and strong
as a wild boar he was probably still no match
for the puppy version of Keeps who even as a beagle
acted bigger than he was always erupting with joy
like a wind-up toy you can’t turn off
Recently
Keep’s been acting a lot like me
a little more quiet than usual
a little more lost in thought
about simple things like snacks
and relaxing or complicated stuff
like life and death or making friends
which I never really had to think about
until now
A Dog’s Life
The expression a dog’s life is supposed
to mean boring and monotonous but that
could also be a kid’s life especially mine
Back during the early part of the pandemic
when middle school was school-in-the-middle-of-my-room
where I sat six hours a day on my bed
as if marooned on an island in a sea of worksheets
My dad always not knocking and opening my door
to ask how I was doing me always hissing Fine
waving him away out of frame so my classmates
wouldn’t see him checking up on me like a freak
Freakish
It was freakish when the pandemic hit
Dad lost his job almost overnight at The Village Herald
where he’d worked since before I was born
he said he’d been half expecting it for as long
as he could remember but like Keeper
The Herald always just seemed to hold on
It was weird to suddenly have my dad hanging around
looking like he didn’t know what to do with himself
no longer needed to rush to the scene of a speech
or a crash or a crime he had a lot of time on his hands
It’s hard even now to understand how everything
felt so fast but also painfully slow for months
we didn’t always know what day it was
for months it didn’t always seem to matter
I See Now
I can see now that Dad was kind of depressed
the way he became obsessed with taking daily
portraits of me and Mom like if he didn’t record
all the small changes in us he would fail
to see some big shift before it came
How each night he’d stand on our fire escape
snapping dozens of pointless photos
of the moon as it waxed and waned
Looks pretty much the same I’d say
No way Dad would reply Look again
She’s completely different today
What He Sees
Capturing what he sees Mom explained to me
is how your dad understands the world I get that
but for a while I found it extremely annoying
actually intrusive is the word I would use
But since I didn’t refuse his daily portraits
there’s lots of shots of me making a face
or rolling my eyes which always made Dad
flash a smile which is partly why I let him
Fate of the Earth
With the fate of the Earth so uncertain
the sight of my dad’s passionate expression
as he’s holding his camera and the light
in his face when he’s taking a photo
make the world feel like a safer place
It’s no wonder I’ve kept a picture of him
like that in my mind sometimes I find
you don’t need a camera to remember
the important things you’ve seenUS
Additional information
| Weight | 16 oz |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 0.8125 × 5.5000 × 8.2500 in |
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| Subjects | poetry books, adoption book, adoption books, books for 11 year old boys, books for 12 year old boys, books for 11 year old girls, books for 10 year old boys, books for 10 year old girls, verse novels, book of poems, poem book, realistic fiction books for kids 9-12, chapter books for kids age 9-12, poetry books for kids, family, novels in verse, books for boys age 9 12, kids books ages 9-12, adoption, poet, poetry for kids, poems for kids, poetry, JUV070000, realistic fiction, books for kids age 9 12, JUV039020, 5th grade books |
