conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled The Girl Who Fell from the Sky about Rachel, Best, Books with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000478411"><strong>Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010</strong></a>: Early on in <em>The Girl Who Fell from the Sky</em>, Rachel Morse (the girl in question) wonders about being "tender-headed." It's how her grandmother chides her for wincing at having her hair brushed, but it's also a way of understanding how Rachel grapples with the world in which she landed. Her parents, a Danish woman and an African-American G.I., tried to hold her and her siblings aloft from questions of race, and their failure there is both tragic and tenderly wrought. After sustaining an unimaginable trauma, Rachel resumes her life as a black girl, an identity she quickly learns to adopt but at heart is always reconciling with the life she knew before. the author bolsters her story with a chorus of voices that often see what Rachel can't--this is particularly true in the case of Brick, the only witness to her fall. There's a poetry to these characters that draws you into their lives, making for a beautiful and earnest coming-of-age novel that speaks as eloquently to teens as it does to adults. --<em>Anne Bartholomew</em>
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000478411"><strong>Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010</strong></a>: Early on in <em>The Girl Who Fell from the Sky</em>, Rachel Morse (the girl in question) wonders about being "tender-headed." It's how her grandmother chides her for wincing at having her hair brushed, but it's also a way of understanding how Rachel grapples with the world in which she landed. Her parents, a Danish woman and an African-American G.I., tried to hold her and her siblings aloft from questions of race, and their failure there is both tragic and tenderly wrought. After sustaining an unimaginable trauma, Rachel resumes her life as a black girl, an identity she quickly learns to adopt but at heart is always reconciling with the life she knew before. the author bolsters her story with a chorus of voices that often see what Rachel can't--this is particularly true in the case of Brick, the only witness to her fall. There's a poetry to these characters that draws you into their lives, making for a beautiful and earnest coming-of-age novel that speaks as eloquently to teens as it does to adults. --<em>Anne Bartholomew</em>
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first five paragraphs for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
  Grandma has walked me the half block from the hospital lobby to the bus stop. Her hand is wrapped around mine like a leash.
  It is fall 1982 in Portland and it is raining. Puddle water has splashed up on my new shoes. My girl-in-a-new-dress feeling has faded. My new-girl feeling has disappeared.
  I know only a few things about Grandma. She's a gardener. She has soft hands, and she smells like lavender.
  For Christmas, Grandma always sent Robbie and me a card with a new ten-dollar bill wrapped in aluminum foil. On the back of the envelope where she pressed extra hard there'd be a small smudge. The card smelled like the lavender lotion she uses to keep her hands soft.
  Grandma doesn't have a single wrinkle on her anywhere. She has eggplant brown skin as smooth as a plate all because of the lotion she sends for special from the South. "They got better roots down there—better dirt for making a root strong." Her body is a bullet. She is thick and short. Her dark hair is pulled back and is covered by a plastic bonnet.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: four more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Lakeisha follows me to my room. Before I have closed the door, she's run her hand across everything on my dresser top.
  Lakeisha talks fast and doesn't let me answer. She has picked up the framed picture of me and Drew and Aunt Loretta in front of the frozen falls.
  I wish I could say: Just like me, but taller. Like a grown-up me. If I describe what Mor really looks like it will make her seem plain: long blond hair, white skin; she had an accent (and that's important even though it's not something you could tell by looking at her). If I describe her to Lakeisha, it will make Mor seem like any other white person you'd see.
  Lakeisha stands in front of the bed and does the Pac-Man. She pulls me off the bed. "See, like this," she says, and she does it real slow. "In-out. In-out."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Lakeisha follows me to my room. Before I have closed the door, she's run her hand across everything on my dresser top.
  Lakeisha talks fast and doesn't let me answer. She has picked up the framed picture of me and Drew and Aunt Loretta in front of the frozen falls.
  I wish I could say: Just like me, but taller. Like a grown-up me. If I describe what Mor really looks like it will make her seem plain: long blond hair, white skin; she had an accent (and that's important even though it's not something you could tell by looking at her). If I describe her to Lakeisha, it will make Mor seem like any other white person you'd see.
  Lakeisha stands in front of the bed and does the Pac-Man. She pulls me off the bed. "See, like this," she says, and she does it real slow. "In-out. In-out.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last three paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Brick puts his arm around me. When he looks at me, it feels like no one has really seen me since the accident. In his eyes, I'm not the new girl. I'm not the color of my skin. I'm a story. One with a past and a future unwritten.
  When the coin lands in the water, it startles the feeding birds. Some squawk and swim away. Others take flight, including one awkward-looking swan that runs across the water.
  The swan takes one step. Three steps, four. It dips its head and then its wings catch the wind. It's hard to tell: Is it still running or is it flying now? It's on top of the water and in the air—like it's in two worlds at once. The swan flaps its wings again and again, three times, four, and then it's aloft. We watch it fly. Away.