Harbor Me

Book is good but it's for young children

Good reading.

Bought this book for class and I enjoyed it. Really nice to see young kids talk about their issues and try to help each other out

ok

The overall message about kids being there for each other is great. Too bad the author felt the need to indoctrinate them with her opinions.There was plenty of white guilt, cop hating and citizenship issues that didn’t need to be in there except to push her agenda.I wouldn’t recommend it with so many other great books out there for kids. Guess they figure get to them while they’re young.I was frustrated reading a good deal of the book! Fortunately our daughter didn’t pick up on most things - but the little seeds were planted.

This book is a masterpiece of how to not teach kids about right and wrong. Trying to gain friendships with emotional problems from home, this book tries to show how kids can bond and move forward to a better life. What is missing is the value of sober living and legal citizenship. The message to the reader is the kids are in a free country but have no understanding of the people who fought for that freedom. Maybe by adding some background about economic migration it would be a more honest book.

Wow. WOW. It is not very often that I finish a book and want nothing more then to pick it right back up again, flip back to page 1, and read it cover to cover just one more time. But that’s exactly how I felt when I put down Harbor Me, a stunning new novel by Jacqueline Woodson. If I have said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Woodson is a gift to literature. Her words resonate deeply, and she possesses an extraordinary ability to tap into timely, almost desperate situations in a manner appropriate and gentle enough for young kids to grasp.In Harbor Me, six children are taken to their school’s old art room and told it’s a place for them to have a weekly chat— without teachers, thus making it totally unmonitored. The six kids, from varying walks of life, are hesitant at first. They each have their stories, but is it safe? Can they open up to one another? The room becomes dubbed the ARTT room, an acronym for “a room to talk,” and soon enough, their stories begin. As their connections develop and their words bridge divides, the students realize that sharing their stories could be the very thing they needed to give them the strength to handle circumstances that once made them feel so desperately alone.Harbor Me is stunning. At once both a coming of age story and an exploration of how America’s political and social challenges affect children daily, Woodson’s words ground us firmly in the ARTT room as the kids struggle to comprehend both their identities as individuals as well as their places in society. These children are America’s children. They are OUR children- children affected by the headlines pervasive in our country today including immigration, deportation, incarcerated parents, and the black lives matter movement. These children are in our homes and schools, and their confidence and self worth is being shaken regularly due to government regulations, racial profiling and harmful ignorance. Through Woodson’s evocative prose and magical storytelling, we watch the children become safe harbors for one another, their initial apprehension slowly turning into compassion, connection and perhaps most importantly, courage.