"Della¡¯s matter-of-fact narration manages to be as funny and charming as it is devastatingly sad. . . . This is a novel about trauma [but] more than that, it¡¯s a book about resilience, strength and healing. For every young reader who decides to wait and read it when they¡¯re a little older, there will be others for whom this is the exact book they need right now."¡ªNew York Times Book Review
¡Ú "Believable and immensely appealing, Suki, Francine, and especially Della light up [the] story . . . Readers will root for these sisters along every step of their daunting journey. Refusing to soft-pedal hard issues, the novel speaks with an astringent honesty, at once heartbreaking and hopeful.¡± ¡ªKirkus (starred review)
¡Ú Perfectly balances pathos and humor [while] also showcasing the astonishing strength and resilience of children to confront, and eventually heal from, trauma and sexual abuse. . . . Unforgettable.¡± ¡ªThe Horn Book (starred review)
¡Ú ¡°Always an engaging and smooth writer, Bradley here unfurls a tale that initially recalls Paterson¡¯s classic Great Gilly Hopkins but then adds layers of complexity . . . It¡¯s a sensitive exploration of the way people can suffer in different ways and need different things, and characterization is deft and vivid . . . Stirring . . . Satisfying . . . Rewarding.¡± ¡ªBCCB (starred review)
¡Ú ¡°Despite the horrors the sisters have endured, there is humor and warmth in this multifaceted, brave novel. Bradley creates fully developed, believable characters that readers will root for. . . . Raw and honest, this ultimately empowering novel is an important book for readers of all ages.¡± ¡ªSLJ (starred review)
¡Ú¡°This story, no PSA, is an honest slice of a difficult life¡ªunvarnished, painful, and raw, [and] Della is a powerhouse of a protagonist . . . Prepare to read furiously.¡± ¡ªBooklist (starred review)
¡Ú ¡°Della¡¯s tough, straightforward narration pulls no punches as she learns the power of using her ¡®big mouth¡¯ and inspires others to tell their stories when and how they are able. Sharp characterizations by Newbery Honoree Brubaker Bradley create an essential, powerful mirror and window for any reader.¡± ¡ªPublishers Weekly (starred review)
¡Ú ¡°Bradley handles these tough subjects in ways that are enlightening, empowering and¡ªyes¡ªuplifting . . . Fighting Words is a story readers will draw strength from, and Della is a heroine they¡¯ll be unlikely to forget.¡±¡ªBookPage
¡°Gripping. Life-changing. Essential. Fighting Words is a testament to the power we have when we stand up, speak up, and stick together. Kimberly Brubaker Bradley¡¯s talent is extraordinary. I am awe-struck.¡± ¡ªDonna Gephart, award-winning author of Lily and Dunkin
¡°One of the best books I've ever read. It will go down as one of the best books, one of the most important books, ever written for kids.¡± ¡ªColby Sharp of Nerdy Book Club
"The remarkable thing about this book is how infinitely enjoyable it is, in spite of some of the terrible and terrifying content. I pic...ked it up and simply found myself unable to put it down. The VOICE on its 10-year-old narrator Della is one for the history books. One of the best of the year." ¡ªBetsy Bird for A Fuse #8 Production/SLJ
¡°Fighting Words extend[s] the legacy of [Laurie Halse Anderson's] Speak [and] meets the criteria of great children¡¯s literature that manages to resonate with adults too. [Readers] will learn about mental health, poverty, addiction, the foster-care system, the importance of consent, and, finally, the importance of destigmatizing these all-too-common stories. The importance and value of speaking." ¡ªBitch Media
¡°Rather than shielding her readers, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley arms them with Fighting Words, a compassionate, truthful, and beautiful story about the trauma of sexual abuse and the remarkable power of sisterhood.¡± ¡ªElana K. Arnold, Printz Honor-winning author of Damsel
¡°I am blown away. This is a powerful, necessary book about a difficult subject, written with honesty, tenderness, and consummate craft. Della¡¯s story will burrow deep into your heart. Fighting Words may be Kimberly Brubaker Bradley¡¯s best work yet.¡± ¡ªBarbara Dee, award-winning author of Maybe He Just Likes You
¡°I wish all children were lucky enough that the first time they encountered dark and difficult things, it was not through a swift and sudden rift in their real lives, but within the safe pages of a story. This beautiful, heartbreaking, and hopeful book is a place where readers can build strength and resilience, page by page, with the gift of opening, closing, and discussing in their own time and at their own pace. And for those who have, till now, felt alone in their hurtful past, this is a book that lets them know they have never been alone. And never will be.¡± ¡ªKat Yeh, award-winning author of The Truth About Twinkie Pie
¡°Absolutely magnificent. The voice on this girl¡ªI cannot get Della out of my head or my heart. Fighting Words is raw, it is real, it is necessary, a must-read for children and their adults¡ªa total triumph in all ways.¡± ¡ªHolly Goldberg Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Counting by 7s
1
M y new tattoo is covered by a Band-Aid, but halfway through recess, the Band-Aid falls off. I¡¯m hanging my winter coat on the hook in our fourth-grade classroom when my teacher, Ms. Davonte, walks by and gasps.
¡°Della,¡± she says, ¡°is that a tattoo?¡±
I hold up my wrist to show it to her. ¡°It¡¯s an ampersand,¡± I say, careful to pronounce the word correctly.
¡°I know that,¡± Ms. Davonte says. ¡°Is it real?¡±
It¡¯s so real, it still hurts, and the skin around it is red and puffy. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am,¡± I say.
She shakes her head and mutters. I am not one of her favorite students. I may be one of her least favorites.
I don¡¯t care. I love, love, love my ampersand tattoo.
I am ten years old. I¡¯m going to tell you the whole story. Some parts are hard, so I¡¯ll leave those for later. I¡¯ll start with the easy stuff.
My name is Delicious Nevaeh Roberts. Yeah, I know. With a first name like that, why don¡¯t I just go by Nevaeh? I never tell anyone my name is Delicious, but it¡¯s down in my school records, and teachers usually blurt it out on the first day.
I¡¯ve had a lot of first days lately.
If I can get it in before the teacher says Delicious out loud, I¡¯ll say, ¡°I go by Della.¡± I mean, I¡¯ll say that anyhow¡ªI answer to Della, not Delicious, thank you¡ªbut it¡¯s easier if no one ever hears Delicious.
Once a boy tried to lick me to see if I was delicious. I kicked him in the¡ª Suki says I can¡¯t use bad words, not if I want anybody to read my story. Everybody I know uses bad words all the time, just not written down. Anyway, I kicked him right in the zipper of his blue jeans¡ªlet¡¯s say it like that¡ªand it was me that got in trouble. It¡¯s always the girl that gets in trouble. It¡¯s usually me.
Suki didn¡¯t care. She said, You stick up for yourself, Della. Don¡¯t you take crap from nobody.
Can I say crap in a story?
Anyhow, she didn¡¯t say crap. She said something worse.
Lemme fix that. Suki says whenever I want to use a bad word, I can say snow. Or snowflake. Or snowy.
I kicked him right in the snow.
Don¡¯t you take snow from nobody.
Yeah, that works.
Okay, so back to me. Delicious Nevaeh Roberts. The Nevaeh is heaven spelled backwards, of course. There¡¯s usually at least one other girl in my class called Nevaeh. It¡¯s a real popular name around here. I don¡¯t know why. It sounds dumb to me. Heaven backwards? What was my mother thinking?
Probably she wasn¡¯t. That¡¯s just the truth. My mother is incarcerated. Her parental rights have been terminated. That just happened lately. Nobody bothered to before, even though by the time she gets out of prison, I¡¯ll be old enough to vote.
I can¡¯t remember her, except one tiny bit like a scene from a movie. Suki says she was no better than a hamster when it came to being a mother, and hamsters sometimes eat their babies. It was always Suki who took care of me. Mostly still is.
Suki¡¯s my sister. She¡¯s sixteen.
I¡¯m still on the easy part of the story, if you can believe that.
Suki¡¯s full name is Suki Grace Roberts. Suki isn¡¯t short for anything, th...ough it sounds like it should be. And that Roberts part¡ªwell, that¡¯s our mother¡¯s last name too. Suki and me, we don¡¯t know who our fathers are, except they were probably different people and neither one of them was Clifton, thank God. Suki swears that¡¯s true. I believe her.
Can you say God in a story? ¡¯Cause I wasn¡¯t taking His name in vain, right there. I really am thanking God,whatever God there is, that Clifton ain¡¯t my daddy.
Suki used to have a photograph of Mama, from her trial. White pale face, sores on it, black teeth from the meth, pale white lanky hair. Suki says she bleached her hair, but whatever, you can see it¡¯s got no texture to it. Hangs like string. Suki¡¯s hair is soft and shiny, dark brown except when she dyes it black. It¡¯s a prettier version of Mama¡¯s hair, and her eyes look like Mama¡¯s too. My hair has bounce. It tangles up all the time. My eyes are lighter than Suki¡¯s and Mama¡¯s.
Suki¡¯s skin is skim-milk white, so pale, her belly almost looks blue. She burns bright red when she goes out in the sun. My skin¡¯s browner, and I don¡¯t never need sunscreen, no matter what Suki says. So while me and Suki don¡¯t know one single thing about our fathers, we¡¯re guessing they weren¡¯t the same.
Which is good, right? Because if the same guy stuck around long enough to be the daddy to both me and Suki, he should¡¯ve stayed and helped us out of this mess. Otherwise he¡¯d just be a snowman. What Suki thinks, and me too, is that Mama probably never told either of our daddies that she was going to have their baby, so we can¡¯t blame them for not being around. It¡¯s possible they were great guys, fantastic in just every way except of course for hanging out with our mother, who was always a hot mess.
Suki and me gave up on Mama a long time ago. Had to. Not only is she incarcerated, she had what¡¯s called a psychotic break as soon as she got to prison. It comes from the meth, and it means she¡¯s bad crazy in a permanent way. She wouldn¡¯t likely even recognize us were we to walk into her cell, not that we could, since she¡¯s incarcerated in Kansas somewhere, which we have no current means of getting to. She doesn¡¯t write or call because she can¡¯t write or call, not so as she would make any sense. And it would never occur to her to do so. She¡¯s forgotten all about us. I¡¯m sorry about that, real sorry, but it¡¯s nothing I can change.
I got a big mouth. That¡¯s a good thing. It¡¯s excellent. Let me tell you a story to explain. Last week at school¡ªthis was a couple of days before I showed up with my new tattoo¡ªMs. Davonte told us we all had to draw family trees. She showed us what she wanted: lines drawn like branches, mother, father, grandparents. Aunts and uncles and cousins.
My tree would dead-end at Mama, behind bars, with Suki sticking off to one side. Wasn¡¯t no way I was going to draw that, especially since I suspected it was something Ms. Davonte planned to hang up in the hall outside our classroom for the entire school to see.
Ms. Davonte still doesn¡¯t get it. I don¡¯t know why not. I thought she was starting to.
Instead of a family tree, I drew a wolf. I¡¯m getting better at wolves. I made her eyes dark and soft but her mouth open, showing fangs. I borrowed Nevaeh¡¯s silver markers to outline her fur.
Ms. Davonte came past and said, ¡°Della, what are you doing? That¡¯s not the assignment.¡±
I said, ¡°This wolf is my family tree.¡± I gave her a look. Ms. Davonte doesn¡¯t know my whole story, but she knows an awful lot of it. Especially given all that¡¯s happened lately. If Ms. Davonte stopped to think, even for just a moment, I bet she maybe could guess why I didn¡¯t want to draw a family tree. Nope. She tightened her lips and said, ¡°I want you to do the assignment I gave you.¡±
I said, ¡°The assignment is snow.¡±
I got in trouble for saying snow.
I knew I would. It¡¯s why I said it. I got to take a little trip down to the principal¡¯s office. The principal and I are practically friends by now. Her name is Dr. Penny. (Penny is her last name. I asked.)
Dr. Penny said, ¡°Della, to what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you this time?¡±
I said, ¡°I¡¯m not doing that assignment. I can¡¯t fix my family tree, and it¡¯s nobody¡¯s business but mine.¡±
¡°Oh,¡± said Dr. Penny. Then she asked what I was doing instead of the assignment, and then she agreed that drawing a wolf seemed like a reasonable compromise. She said she¡¯d have a word with Ms. Davonte.
I said, ¡°Luisa doesn¡¯t want to draw her family tree, either. Or Nevaeh.¡± Nevaeh¡¯s dad left a few years ago. Luisa, I didn¡¯t know her whole story, but I saw the way her eyes emptied out when Ms. Davonte told us what she wanted us to do. ¡°Ms. Davonte is still not listening until she has to.¡±
Dr. Penny sighed. I don¡¯t know who she was sighing at. She said, ¡°I¡¯ll talk to her, Della.¡±
I said, ¡°She ought to be paying better attention.¡± I¡¯m only ten years old, and I noticed Luisa¡¯s eyes and the way Nevaeh¡¯s shoulders tightened. Ms. Davonte is the teacher.
Francine says you can trust some people, but not all o