conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about English, smart, hopscotch with the genre: Children's Books, Growing Up & Facts of Life?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Lucky Broken Girl'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Lucky Broken Girl
  I'm a little clumsy at first, but after a while I get the swing of it, though I end up with newsprint all over my fingers as we read some stories.
  Then she passes me the saved newspaper from August 6, 1966, and tells me, "There's an article about Dr. Martin Luther King I think you should read. Do you know what he's fighting for?"
  Joy lowers her voice, as if she's scared to talk out loud, even though the only people in the house besides her are Mami and me.
  I read about Dr. King going to Chicago to protest segregated neighborhoods and being attacked by a mob of angry white people who threw rocks at him. Some of the people were wearing Nazi-style helmets. I know this is a free country, but is that okay? So many ideas are whirling through my head that I feel a little dizzy.
  I think about how terrible it is to hate so much. I know, because I used to hate the boys who caused the car accident. When I stopped hating them it was like I stepped out from under a dark cloud and saw the sunshine again.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Lucky Broken Girl
  I'm a little clumsy at first, but after a while I get the swing of it, though I end up with newsprint all over my fingers as we read some stories.
  Then she passes me the saved newspaper from August 6, 1966, and tells me, "There's an article about Dr. Martin Luther King I think you should read. Do you know what he's fighting for?"
  Joy lowers her voice, as if she's scared to talk out loud, even though the only people in the house besides her are Mami and me.
  I read about Dr. King going to Chicago to protest segregated neighborhoods and being attacked by a mob of angry white people who threw rocks at him. Some of the people were wearing Nazi-style helmets. I know this is a free country, but is that okay? So many ideas are whirling through my head that I feel a little dizzy.
  I think about how terrible it is to hate so much. I know, because I used to hate the boys who caused the car accident.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know two more paragraphs? Start with the sentence 'She hands the dandelion to me'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: She hands the dandelion to me. Should I accept it? I was angry with her. But I'm too happy now to be angry.
  Joy says I should finish up the school year at P.S. 117 with my classmates in the sixth grade. "You'll fit right in. You've done all the same assignments, plus extra reading and math. And you can type a hundred words a minute. And you're a budding artist!"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs? End with the sentence ' But she has always been a creative writer first and foremost, looking for ways to share ideas about cultural diversity and the search for home, inviting others to share the journey into the heart of the human experience.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It took fifty years for me to release that pain and to honor the voice of the broken girl. I feel blessed to have found the words to tell this story, though I don't recommend that anyone wait that long. Pain is pain. Speak up. Tell your story.
  Yes, I was in the dumb class. And yes, we had just arrived in New York as refugees from Cuba when the car accident took place. We were scared. We didn't have money. We didn't speak English. We didn't know if they'd ship us back to Cuba. And if we had to flee again suddenly, what would become of me? I was immobile, a girl confined to her bed.
  I seemed to take forever to rise up and walk. When finally I could walk, I seemed to take forever to stop limping. Healing is a journey and it takes its own sweet time. What a gift it is to get a second chance at life when the worst is past.
  Ruthie continues to live in me, the grown-up Ruth. You might not believe me when I say this, because I became a woman who is always traveling, a restless woman who lives with a suitcase by the door. But every now and then, if I fall ill with a fever or if I am hurt by someone's cruel words, if I feel weak and defenseless because the world feels too big for me, I become small again, and I crawl into my bed. And then, I have to tell you the truth: It's very hard, very, very, very hard for me to get up again. I become the girl in the cast, the girl in the white plaster cast. But I know that if the broken girl is cared for, she will stop being afraid. So I am patient when Ruthie reemerges, when she comes back to say hello. I lie there quietly listening to her fears, her sorrows. Then I tell her good-bye, muster my strength, rise and open the door and let the sunshine in. I become the grown-up Ruth and return to the world, no longer feeling so small. I step out, legs trembling a little but my heart full, and set forth on the next journey, entrusting myself to the beauty and danger of life all over again.
  As a cultural anthropologist, Ruth brings her heart into all her writing. Her notion of "the vulnerable observer" is one of the most referenced ideas in contemporary social thought. But she has always been a creative writer first and foremost, looking for ways to share ideas about cultural diversity and the search for home, inviting others to share the journey into the heart of the human experience.