2024 the best ya books review

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Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
New York Times bestseller
"Timely and timeless." -Jacqueline Woodson
"Important and deeply moving." -John Green

Bestselling and award-winning author Renée Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her.

Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn't really welcome, like an invitation to join a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Just because her mentor is Black and graduated from the same high school doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from. She's tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people want to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. Maybe there are some things she could show other women about understanding the world and finding ways to be real, to make a difference.

NPR's Best Books
A New York Public Library Best Teen Book of the Year
Chicago Public Library's Best Books
A School Library Journal Best Book
Kirkus Reviews' Best Teen Books
Josette Frank Award Winner

From the Publisher

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury YA; Reprint edition (June 5, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1681191075
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681191072
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 11 - 13 years, from customers
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 680L
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 7 - 9
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.45 x 1.05 x 8.2 inches
Reviewer: snapbookreviews
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Gorgeous Writing, Explores identity development for YA readers
Review: Jade is a 16-year-old African American girl who lives in a low-income neighborhood and rides the city bus daily to her predominantly white, upper income private school. At the urging of her mom who works as a housekeeper, Jade takes advantage of every opportunity that the school offers her.When Jade's white guidance counselor funnels her into a mentoring program called Woman to Woman for "at risk" African American girls, Jade is offended but masks her feelings. As the top student in her Spanish class, Jade had deserved an invitation to attend a program where she could use her language skills to help children.Even her African American mentor disappoints. Missing meetings, accepting phone calls during their outings, and inadvertently highlighting their income differences. With the love and guidance of her no nonsense mom and best friend Lee Lee, Jade learns to expresses herself, speak uncomfortable truths, and confront those who make decisions about her.The stress of dealing with overt and covert racism and well-intentioned but unrecognized discrimination takes it's toll. Jade is exhausted by the daily deconstruction and reconstruction of her sense of self, like creating one of her collages.This story does not have romance or action; rather, the author let's us inside Jade's thoughts and feelings where we witness her determination to stay whole every day. This is where the empathy lies.Overt racism is easy to spot. Covert racism can be subtle and nuanced. Piecing Me Together shines a light on race, class, and even body image.The target audience is seventh through ninth grades.The prose is lyrical and a pure joy to read.Piecing Me Together has earned the following awards:NPR's Best Books of 2017A 2017 New York Public Library Best Teen Book of the YearChicago Public Library's Best Books of 2017A School Library Journal Best Book of 2017Kirkus Reviews' Best Teen Books of 20172018 Josette Frank Award Winner

Reviewer: Tiara
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great read
Review: Wonderful book, would read again

Reviewer: salim shahed
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: piecing me together
Review: Hasna JornaBook Review"Piecing me together," a young adult novel by Renee Watson, tells the story of jade, a Portland, Ore., high school student with - her words - cold skin and hula-hoop hips. Jade has won a scholarship to St. Francis, a private school that's mostly white. This novel is a timely and powerful story about a teen girl from a poor neighborhood striving for success, from acclaimed author Renée Watson. Jade is a lovely, lovely character for many reasons. She is an artist and she makes these beautiful collages from scraps of other people’s trash, and we’ll talk about that hopefully little more todayjade believes she must get out of her neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother says she has to take every opportunity. And also her mom is desperate for her to make close friends at the school but for her, she is just want to kind of keep her head down and plough through. And she talks a lot about sort of knowing she has to take advantage of the “opportunities” that this school has to offer. Jade feels bad in her school classroom, because her all white classmate mother are women who hiring the housekeeper but her mother is a women who worked for house keeper. She lived with her mother, her father doesn’t live with them her father live with his girlfriend. But he like jade lots, he said once a time that jade is his everything as his daughter. Every day jade rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn’t really welcome, like an invitation to join women to women, a mentorship program for ‘’ at risk’’ girls. Just because her mentor is black and graduated from the same high school doesn’t mean she understands where jade is coming from. She’s tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. As a black girl live in white area jade is insulting by white people, for example one day jade went to a store with her best friend sam and she was looking for something but the store employed come to her and ask her why her bag is like that that mean she guess jade is a thief she stole something from the store, but she didn’t. And white customer are holding lots of thing their hands but the employ didn’t blame them for anything. This was totally unfair that they did with jade.as the novel comes to a close, jade is learning she has the power to stand up for herself and it feels good to do so. She also learns she has the ability to overcome the stereotypes against blacks and that she has to make a commitment to see anything through to the conclusion, including friendships. This book is all about overcoming to rise, because she is trying to figure out who she is and how to feel more whole in her life as she is sort of collaging her own life together.I think one of the reasons i loved this book so much is that, as a white woman in the world, a book like this gives me the opportunity to step into the shoes of somebody having a very different experience from my own. I recommended this book for readers because they will know for their future how to how they and their community stitch them back together each day, like how jade and her community stitch her back together each day

Reviewer: klay
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: IT'S A GOOD READING, AND IT TEACHES GIRLS TO NEVER GIVE UP ON THEIR DREAMS .

Reviewer: Asha Sreedhar
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Once I purchased the novel, I couldn't wait to start reading it and when I started, I found it somewhat sad but interesting at the same time. I admire the character and how determined she is to go forward in life despite challenges and struggles at the same time. It is worth reading this novel.

Reviewer: Dahlia O'Neil
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I liked the way the author wove the story. I love the message of empowerment to young people of any orientation.

Reviewer: Mrs. Lj Hart
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Jade goes to a private school on a scholarship and doesn't feel the connection with other students that she feels to students from her local community. Particularly her best friend Lee Lee, they just get each other without words.One day on the long bus journey to school Sam gets on, clearly she goes to the same school as Jade, and the two girls become friends. While Sam and Jade's new friendship is developing, Jade is selected for the Woman to Woman programme and she learns and is encouraged to speak out against injustice and to be true to herself.This is a story about a young woman who recognises the power of opportunity and education, whose ideals and friendships are challenged as she learns about what she's prepared to accept and who she wants to be. It's a story about speaking up and speaking out and about the importance of listening and recognising that one person can make a difference.

Reviewer: SB Samphire
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Oh, how I loved this book.Jade's voice is SO strong and compelling and real. I loved, loved, loved her in all of her strength and vulnerability and passion. I can't imagine anyone who's ever felt like a misfit in their own surroundings *not* identifying with her deeply emotional - and uplifting - story! I loved all the other characters too, and the complexity of their relationships. I loved the way that Jade learned to trust in her own voice and speak up for herself by the end of the book.The political themes are really powerful and moving, but most of all, Jade's own voice just grabbed me so hard from page 1, and I was rooting for her all throughout the book - which was so absorbing, so gorgeously written and so infused with intense emotion, I could NOT put it down. I devoured the whole thing within a day, and I know I'll be re-reading it many, many times in the future (and giving it as a gift, too).I fell absolutely in love with Renée Watson's writing in this book, and now I want to read everything else she's written, too!Highly, highly recommended.