Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir
In her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse. Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.
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Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir
In her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse. Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.
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Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir

Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir

by Nikki Grimes

Narrated by Nikki Grimes

Unabridged — 4 hours, 36 minutes

Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir

Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir

by Nikki Grimes

Narrated by Nikki Grimes

Unabridged — 4 hours, 36 minutes

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Overview

In her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse. Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 07/29/2019

Grimes (One Last Word) presents a gripping memoir in verse constructed from imperfect recollections of the hardship and abuse she endured as a child. Having lost chunks of her memory as a result of traumatic experiences, Grimes relies on her art to fill in the blanks. In recurring entries titled “The Mystery of Memory,” and “Notebook,” Grimes contextualizes her scattered remembrances to provide a sense of time and place for readers (“Where is the chronology of a life/ chaotic from the start?”). Grimes eloquently conveys the instability of a childhood lived in the unpredictable wake of a mentally ill mother and abusive stepfather alongside hopeful anecdotes about the safe haven provided by her beloved older sister, her growing faith, and the often absent yet doting father she lost too soon. Underlining the idea that “a memoir’s focus is on truth, not fact,” Grimes courageously invites readers to join her on a journey through the shadows of her past, bridging “the gaps/ with suspension cables/ forged of steely gratitude/ for having survived my past/at all.” Ages 12–up. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

Michael L. Printz Honor Book
Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book
Boston Globe/Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book
Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for Teens

Six Starred Reviews—★Booklist ★BCCB ★The Horn Book ★Publishers Weekly ★School Library Connection ★Shelf Awareness

A Booklist Best Book for Youth * A BCCB Blue Ribbon * A Horn Book Fanfare Book * A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book * Recommended on NPR's "Morning Edition" by Kwame Alexander

"Ordinary Hazards is a gorgeous piece of writing that also serves as powerful inspiration for any reader who has struggled and sought grace. Grimes's triumph over adversity is matched only by her skill with the written word—her memoir is accessible to poetry enthusiasts and detractors alike, and will linger long after the final lines."—Shelf Awareness, starred review

★ "With Ordinary Hazards, Grimes delivers a memoir in the form of a powerful and inspiring collection of poems. She details her early life through adulthood, and she unabashedly explores the highs as well as the lows. Young adults will identify with and connect to the many challenges explored in Grimes’ work, which delves into issues of love, family, responsibility, belonging, finding your place in the world, and fighting the monsters you know—and the ones you don’t. The memoir has heartbreaking moments—even soul-crushing ones—that will make readers ache for young Grimes and teens grappling with similar circumstances. But inspiring moments bolster her raw, resonant story, showing that there is always light at the end of the darkest of tunnels."—Booklist, starred review

★ "Grimes potently conveys the way reading and writing can become ways not just to express oneself but to construct oneself, to articulate one’s identity, to map one’s mental and emotional territory. Readerly readers will find young Nikki inspiring company..." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review

★ "
As poetically written as Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming with a story as hard-hitting as Sapphire’s Push....the striking free-verse poems powerfully convey how a passion for writing fueled her will to survive and embrace her own resilience.... (a) must-read for aspiring writers."—The Horn Book, starred review

"Grimes presents a gripping memoir in verse constructed from imperfect recollections of the hardship and abuse she endured as a child. Underlining the idea that 'a memoir’s focus is on truth, not fact,' Grimes courageously invites readers to join her on a journey through the shadows of her past..."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ "
(W)ritten in highly readable verse and delivers a relatable message characterized by pathos and resilience... this book is an homage to the fortifying effect of written expression. School counselors can use this text as bibliotherapy for students in similar situations (and it) can also act as mentor text in classroom lessons on memoir writing or when teaching confessional poetry."—School Library Connection, starred review

"For award-winning children's and YA author Grimes, writing, faith, and determination were the keys to surviving her tumultuous childhood. Grimes recounts her story as a memoir in verse, writing with a poet's lyricism through the lens of memory fractured by trauma. Fans of her poetry and prose will appreciate this intimate look at the forces that shaped her as an artist and as a person determined to find the light in the darkest of circumstances. A raw, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting story of trauma, loss, and the healing power of words."—Kirkus Reviews

"Grimes offers young adult readers the special treat of literary ingenuity in her new memoir... that doesn’t demand a time line.  This nontraditional memoir from a long-working and highly acclaimed author will speak deeply to young readers harboring their own interest in writing or otherwise squeezing art out of life’s spiky fruit."—School Library Journal

“This book is... a gut-wrenching testimony of pain, loss, resilience, and grace. Nikki is open about her truth and wrote it to make it accessible to readers of all ages. This book will heal hearts and open a lot of eyes. It will keep some kids alive and it will wake up some adults. This powerful story, told with the music of poetry and the blade of truth, will help your heart grow.”
—Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak and Shout

“In Ordinary Hazards, Nikki Grimes has given us an intimate look into her life as a young person who found writing as a way to buoy herself in the choppy waters of her childhood. Giving us a glimpse into addiction, abandonment, foster care, and abuse, Grimes poetically guides us to her eventual acceptance and amazement. This is a testimony and a triumph.” 
Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down

"Life, as Nikki Grimes so well puts it, is full of ordinary hazards, only she creates and accepts them in poems. Sometimes you want to cry... sometimes to laugh... but always at all times are you glad you are alive and lived with it and through it. Ms. Grimes writes, but some of us sing, bake, or build buildings or play sports. These, too, can be hazardous. But none of them is ordinary.”
Nikki Giovanni, Poet

“Each verse is a gift, showing us how to find beauty even in brokenness.”
Renée Watson, author of the New York Times best seller Piecing Me Together
 
“In Ordinary Hazards Nikki Grimes gives us her raw, desperate, joyful, lyrical truth, while celebrating the life-changing, and ­life-saving, power of words. Whoever you are, there’s something in Ordinary Hazards for you.” —Chris Crutcher, author of Whale Talk and Losers Bracket
 
Ordinary Hazards is an extraordinary book, a stunning memoir in verse that celebrates the power of the written word and the human spirit. Nikki’s story will be a life-saving read for teens who need to know that there is hope on the other side of the struggles they’re facing today.”
Kate Messner, author of Breakout and The Seventh Wish
 
“Can I use just one word in a blurb? Then it’s WOW! If two: Incredibly moving. If three: Poetry saved her. Four: That’s too easy. Instead I’ll tell you that if you read one book of poetry this year, or one memoir, make it this one. How the poet came out of her childhood with grace and good words is a miracle. How she wanted to share is a second one. That she did—a third. Just WOW.”
Jane Yolen, sometime poet, author of over 375 published books
 
“Memory is a capricious dance partner. Sometimes it overwhelms our brain, stomping with bold, defined images and thoughts, and sometimes it simply tiptoes around the edges of a whisper, a dream, a forgotten touch or glance. Nikki Grimes’s powerful memoir does both as she uses words, her constant source of strength, to tell the story of her childhood, which at times was both traumatic as well as triumphant. The strength that carried the child who would become the writer, the poet, the visionary was built on the power of words. She constantly and faithfully wrote in journals and notebooks and on scraps of paper because the words were her wings. Poetry became a necessary tool of survival for her mind and body and soul. This memoir, which she calls Ordinary Hazards, far exceeds the title. It is extraordinary.” —Sharon M. Draper, author of the New York Times best seller Out of My Mind

School Library Journal

10/01/2019

Gr 7 Up—Grimes offers young adult readers the special treat of literary ingenuity in her new memoir. "Time to grab my flashlight / and step into the tunnel," Grimes writes in an early poem—making reference to her task with this new work. In long poems, short poems, and the occasional prose poem, Grimes guides us through her past tragedies and triumphs while keenly observed moments build her inner world. Readers spend time with three different points of view: child Grimes, adolescent Grimes, and burgeoning adult Grimes. Though the circumstances and characters change as she moves and grows, her voice is consistently spare and warm. The poems about experiencing neglect as a five-year-old carry the same powerful simplicity as those written about high school. A memoir that doesn't demand a time line, this work is a personal history in poems that you can read backward and forward. VERDICT This nontraditional memoir from a long-working and highly acclaimed author will speak deeply to young readers harboring their own interest in writing or otherwise squeezing art out of life's spiky fruit.—Sierra Dickey, Center for New Americans, Northampton, MA

Kirkus Reviews

2019-07-21
For award-winning children's and YA author Grimes (Between the Lines, 2018, etc.), writing, faith, and determination were the keys to surviving her tumultuous childhood.

In the face of her father's abandonment and the revolving door of her alcoholic mother's psychiatric hospital stays, Grimes becomes savvier and more resilient than any young child should have to be. After being abused by a babysitter when she was 3, Grimes and her beloved older sister, Carol, enter another set of revolving doors: foster care, sometimes loving, sometimes not. At a dark moment when she is 6, Grimes finds escape and comfort in prayer and writing. Despite the instability and danger she endures, Grimes blossoms into a gifted teen with a passion for books, journaling, and poetry. Her personal, political, and artistic awakenings are intertwined, with the drama of her family life unfolding against the backdrop of pivotal moments in Civil Rights-era America. Grimes recounts her story as a memoir in verse, writing with a poet's lyricism through the lens of memory fractured by trauma. Fans of her poetry and prose will appreciate this intimate look at the forces that shaped her as an artist and as a person determined to find the light in the darkest of circumstances.

A raw, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting story of trauma, loss, and the healing power of words. (Verse memoir. 12-adult)

Product Details

BN ID: 2940174037847
Publisher: Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date: 12/10/2019
Edition description: Unabridged
Age Range: 12 - 17 Years

Read an Excerpt

ON OUR OWN 

1.
No one warned me the world was full of ordinary hazards like closets with locks and keys.
 
I learned this lesson when Mom,
without her cousin to fall back on,
left us daily with a succession of strangers while she went to work.
One woman was indisputably a demon in disguise,
full lips grinning slyly as Mom waved goodbye each morning.
“See you after work,”
Mom said that first day.
The second she was out of sight,
Demon’s smile melted like hot paraffin.
Snatching up Carol and me,
she dragged us, kicking, to the bedroom closet.
She shoved us in, quick as the witch in “Hansel and Gretel,”
jamming the key in the lock.
“You tattle to your mom about this,” 
she growled, “I’ll comeback and beat the black off ya.”
Deadly threat delivered,
she left for the day.

2.
I screamed, my puny fists pounding the door till Carol caught me by the wrists and held me still. “Shhhh,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. I’m right here.”
Once my breathing slowed,
Carol left me long enough to navigate the darkness.
 
She found suitcases to sit on.  
Sniffling, I perched on the edge of one
 and pressed my fingertips together.
 
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
 
I repeated those words like a chant.
I was three years old.
It was the only prayer I knew.
 
3.
I should’ve prayed not to pee my pants.
The cramped and stuffy space 
made me wheeze.
Brass fittings on the Samsonite case dug into the flesh behind my knees.
But worse yet,
the occasional roach skittered along my calf,
up a thigh,
and I would scratch and stomp and cry till it was off.
No one was around to wipe away my tears, 
except my sister,
who had tears of her own.
 
4.
Day after day,
the routine remained unchanged.
Demon locked us up in the morning,
then let us out and fed us just before
Mom came home from work.
Despite the witch’s threat,
the minute Carol saw Mom, she poured out the horrors of that first day,
but Mom waved her away with a warning to quit lying.
 
5.
One afternoon,
when I thought we’d live in the dark forever,
I heard what sounded like 
a familiar voice.
“Girls?”
“Mommy?” I screamed,
afraid to believe.
But the lock turned,
the door flew open,
and I leaped into Mom’s arms.
“My God!” she said.
“How long have you two been in here?”
“All day,” snapped Carol,
keeping her distance.
“I told you!
I told you,
but you called me a liar!”
 
6.
The slap of words sent
Mom to her knees, please 
written all over her face.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered,
reaching for my sister.
Carol backed away.
“Jesus,” Mom said. “What did this woman do? Are you all right?”
Where to begin?
There were too many answers.
Even my big sister lacked the language needed for them all,
so we chose silence.
Besides, it was impossible to guess which atrocities
Mom was prepared to hear.
 
7.
Thankfully, my sister and I
never laid eyes on that bit of walking evil again. Still,
Demon lived inside us for years,
embedded in our twin fears of the dark.

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