Ordinary Hazards

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