All The Broken Pieces

Citation

Burg, Ann E. All the Broken Pieces. New York: Scholastic Press, 2009. ISBN: 0545080924

Poetic Elements

Full and flowing free verse, this novel is a gift for discussing voice and imagery. The ease with which the poet author introduces the various characters and the most troubling subjects of the story is enviable, and the imagery produced with stanzas that read “But he isn't an afraid quiet. Just a calm quiet, like he's looked into a closet of monsters and found empty candy wrappers instead.” is just beautiful. The title of All The Broken Pieces lends itself well to describing how Matt's life has been broken, as well as those around him, and how they work to put those pieces back together into something that makes sense. The spare use of language puts extra emphasis on the raw emotions of the characters and how the war has affected everyone in different ways because, as Matt says in the story, “Even the broken pieces are worth something to me.”

Appeal and Overall Quality

This is a stunning debut for Ann E. Burg. She chronicles the story of Matt, a young boy airlifted out of Vietnam and now adopted at age 10 into a loving American family. Alternating between guilt for surviving the ordeal, the pressure he puts on himself to somehow feel as if he deserves the love of his new family, and bullying at school, this young man faces tricky life situations that young adults will be able to relate to at some level. The shortened length and quick flow of the novel will lend itself to reluctant readers who do not feel that they can commit to a long relationship with a novel.

Spotlight Poem

The house I live in now

is big,

but its walls are thin.

At night, when they

think I am asleep,

I hear the news on TV.

I hear them talk.

It's no wonder

the soldiers are broken,

Dad says.

When they left, they were

high school heroes,

stars of the football team,

with pretty girlfriends.

Now look at them--

hobbling on crutches,

rolling themselves

in wheelchairs,

while people throw things--

tomatoes,

rotten apples,

angry words.

Follow-Up Activity

This would be an excellent and timely poem for a discussion with older children about what soldiers returning from war are faced with. There could be a study of the Vietnam War era, along with discussion of what soldiers returning from war today face. How would experiences compare or contrast between wars and situations?

Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6–8—In 1977, 12-year-old Matt Pin lives a fractured life. He is the son of a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier and was airlifted to safety from the war zone. Adopted by a caring American couple, he has vivid and horrific memories of the war and worries about the fates of his mother and badly injured little brother. Matt's adoptive family adores him, and he is the star pitcher for his middle school baseball team, but there are those who see his face and blame him for the deaths of the young men they lost in the war. The fractured theme runs the course of this short novel in verse: Matt's family, the bodies and hearts of the Vietnam vets, the country that is "only a pocketful of broken pieces" that Matt carries inside him. Ultimately, everything broken is revealed as nonetheless valuable. While most of the selections read less like poems and more like simple prose, the story is a lovely, moving one. Use this in a history class or paired with Katherine Applegate's Home of the Brave (Feiwel & Friends, 2007).—Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO

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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Airlifted from Vietnam at the end of the war and adopted by a loving American family, Matt Pin, 12, is haunted by what he left behind, even as he bonds with his new little brother and becomes a star pitcher on the school baseball team. In rapid, simple free verse, the first-person narrative gradually reveals his secrets: his memories of mines, flames, screams, helicopters, bombs, and guns, as well as what the war did to his little brother (“He followed me / everywhere, / he follows me still”). But this stirring debut novel is about much more than therapy and survivor guilt. When his parents take Matt to a veterans’ meeting, he hears the soldiers’ stories of injury and rejection and begins to understand why the school bully calls him “frogface” (“My brother died / Because of you”). There is occasional contrivance as Matt eavesdrops on adults. But the haunting metaphors are never forced, and the intensity of the simple words, on the baseball field and in the war zone, will make readers want to rush to the end and then return to the beginning again to make connections between past and present, friends and enemies. Add this to the Booklist read-alike column “Children at War.” Grades 6-10. --Hazel Rochman