“The Throw Away Piece” won first place for Best Novel at the 2003 Chicano/ Latino Literary Prize at the University of California in Irvine. This book also won first place in the 2007 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People Award. “The Throw Away Piece” was a finalist for Foreword Magazine and was picked for The New York Public Library’s 2007 Books for the Teen Age list, considered the ultimate guide to teen reads. Check me out on Amazon.
“The Throwaway Piece” is a book about a girl in foster care. This is a book that kids can identify with (a girl that feels no one wants her) and use as a positive role model. Please take the time and check out, “The Throw Away Piece” and let Jewel speak for herself. Once you meet her you’ll fall in love with her as everyone else has. She gets under your skin, and you never forget her. People beg me to write a sequel because they want to know how life turns out for Jewel when she grows up. Give us a chance. That is all I am asking for.
Your assistance in getting the word out about my book would be most appreciated. You can make the difference of a worthy book being noticed and used for the right audience. Please share this message with other teachers, school districts, librarians, and other email list you are on.
I am available for interview, and I would love to speak with teen groups (in person or via speaker-phone) or book clubs. I live in San Antonio, TX.
Note from Author: Jewel doesn’t look like the book cover. Also the last line of the book was changed. If you want to know the “real” last line of the book, email me: BronzeWord1@yahoo.com or 210.274.0691
Check with BronzeWord. We provide this book for fundraising purposes. You can buy this book in bulk from BronzeWord for 60% and sell them for 100% and make 40% profit for your school or organization. Contact us for more information: BronzeWord1@yahoo.com. This book is a great gift for a teen or donate to a library.
Award-winning Writer Pens New Novel for Young Adults
In Jo Ann Yolanda Hernandez’ latest novel, The Throwaway Piece, teenaged Jewel is shuttled from one foster home to another. But Jewel wasn’t always a “State Kid.” Her mother Angela’s constant search for happiness through a steady stream of unsavory boyfriends leads to the state’s intervention in Jewel’s life.
Listening to her new foster mother’s list of “nos”—no drugs, no lying, no stealing, no skipping school, no boys in or out of the house, no being late—Jewel realizes that her mother said “yes” a lot. Probably too much. She remembers saving Angela’s life when one of many boyfriends beat her, trying to hide another boyfriend’s attempts to rape her when she was fourteen, and being sent to a foster home just to please the latest boyfriend. But still, Jewel keeps close ties with her mother knowing that she will need to pick up the pieces when the latest jerk leaves.
Bit by bit Jewel’s life begins to change for the better after her latest move to a new foster home and school. Although most people can’t see past her tough “State Kid” façade—spray-painted hair, heavy make-up, and unlaced shoes—her English teacher realizes there’s more to her than meets the eye. He convinces Jewel to tutor a fellow student who needs help with math, and gradually she learns how to make friends. In the process, she touches the lives of many people around her, including her social worker, teachers who believe in her, her new-found, tentative friends, and even their parents. But when she’s forced to choose between her life-long job—taking care of her mother—and doing what’s right for herself, old habits and loyalties are hard to break. Jewel is sure that this time, she can save her mom. But will she be able to save herself?
Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández is the author of White Bread Competition (Piñata Books, 1997), which received recognition as the second place winner of the University of California Irvine’s Chicano / Latino Literary Prize in 1996. Her work has been published in various journals. She currently resides in San Antonio, TX.
Title: The Throwaway Piece
Author: Jo Ann Yolanda Hernández
Publication Date: May 31, 2006 Pages: 192 Price: $9.95
Imprint: Piñata Books
Trim: 5.5” x 8.5” Format: Trade Paperback
ISBN 10: 1-55885-353-7 ISBN 13: 978-1-55885-353-9
Chapter 1
Mother and Child
March 4, 1994
Rule # 1 What’s important is never you.
I didn’t start out as a State Kid. Name’s Jewel. When I was four, my mom and I lived in an apartment complex with an inner courtyard, where the smells of everyone’s supper mingled: boiled cabbage, roasted jalapeños, and spaghetti sauce.
My mom and I squeezed into three rooms and a kitchenette with smoke-stained paint, smudged fingerprints around the doorknobs, and bars on the windows. Neighbors became privy to each other’s lives through apartment walls. People turned up their televisions to drown out kids who screamed for mercy or maybe love. Families made do with what they had and dreamed their hope-driven dreams of what could be.
“Mommy, where you going?”
“Out.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Cause why?”
“Because you’re such a little question box.”
I stand next to the dresser, my hands locked on the edge, barely able to see over the top. In my jean overalls and a yellow shirt, I watch my mother in the mirror lining her green eyes with make-up. “So you be pretty.”
“Jewel, I’ve told you to stop speaking like the other kids on the block. We want our new daddy to be proud of us. You have to speak proper English.” Mom smiles into the mirror and blows me a kiss.
I catch the kiss and pat my cheek, enjoying the game she plays with me. If I can keep Mom playing, maybe she won’t leave me alone.
“You’re the most beautiful daughter a mother could have.” Mom’s waist-length black hair shimmers as she bends forward to color in her lips. She smacks at her pale reflection and sucks in her cheeks.
I don’t smile. The worry feeling leeches into my body as the stomps of the Dragon get loud. I saw him in a book, and now he haunts the nights when Mommy is gone.
When my mom is stronger, I’ll be able to tell her about the Dragon. She’ll chase it away. For now, I have to be a brave daughter for my mom. “I wanna go.”
Mom tilts her head and winks at me. “No. This is grown-up playtime. Maybe tomorrow we can do something. Would you like to go to the park?”
I nod then crawl on top of Mom’s double bed. The one place the Dragon can’t come. Mom crosses the room and picks a dress from the closet.
“What about this one, honey bunch?” She holds the outfit up by the hanger. A scarlet sequined dress, short-sleeved, split up the side, sparkles in the light.
I smile. I like the color red. “You gonna bring me home a daddy?” This is Mom’s favorite game.
Mom pulls the dress over her head, still talking. She pops her head out of the top. “Tonight’s the night, kid. The love potion is going to work. I’ve this strong feeling tonight is going to be magic.”
I kneel and bounce on the bed, clapping my hands. “I like magic shows.”
Mom struggles with the clasps on the back of her dress. “Yeah, your kind of magic’s fun, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”
I hate the word “bills.” It makes the sound of my mother’s voice sad and sometimes mean. “What would we be like with a daddy? Would he pay the bills?” I flop forward and lie on my stomach, my feet in the air. I spy the face of the Dragon in the mirror, but the image is gone before my mother looks up.
She checks her watch, which has her name, Angela, spelled in diamond chips across the band. From the closet, she pulls out silver strap heels, sits down next to me, and strokes my cheek. “One day we’re going to meet a magic prince. He’s going to take us away, out of this tenement to live in a fabulous house.”
I ask more to keep the dream going and my mother from leaving. “Will I have toys? And dolls?” I roll over, hang my head off the bed, and upside down, watch my mother strap the heels to her ankles.
“Yes, you’ll have your own room, filled with toys, dolls, everything your heart desires. I’ll have a room to do my art work. I won’t have to work at the drugstore because he will be very successful. People will respect him. Every time they meet me, they’ll treat me well because I’m his wife. Other fine ladies will invite me to their homes to play bridge.”
“What’s bridge, Mommy?” I knot my forehead. Is this new to the game?
“It’s a game your new daddy will teach me. He’ll like to teach me a lot of things so he can be really proud of me. I’ll learn fast.” My mother stands to check herself in the mirror and runs her hands over her flat stomach and her trim hips.
I feel the Dragon’s hot breath on my legs. “Are you leaving me?” I search for magic words to keep my mother near.
“It’s time, sweetheart.” My mother swings me onto her hip. She steps out into the hallway and walks on a once blue, now gray, strip of carpet. It runs the length of the hallway with worn out spots in front of each doorway.
The hallway light bulb has been out since last week, and like my mother says the paycheck isn’t due for several more days. Light from my mother’s bedroom fades into the grey by the time we reach my room. My ears fill with the snorts from the Dragon. I bury my face in my mother’s neck.
She gives me an extra tight squeeze when she feels me tremble. “Silly girl. Mommy won’t let the boogeyman get you. I promise. I’ll never let anything hurt you.”
My mother squeezes me too tight, and I feel my breath caught in my body. This hug is more for her than for me, so I wrap my chubby arms around my mother’s neck. “I love you, Mommy.”
She flips on the light of my bedroom. A small white bed comes into view. She sets me on the bed, helps me undress and slips my pajamas over my head. “When you get older, you’ll be able to help me more by doing this yourself.”
I grab and pull my pajama top down hard to get rid of the wrinkles and check if my mother notices.
She reaches over the bed, and I fill my nose with her perfume. She snatches a three-foot-long purple feather off the nightstand. I stand on the bed, and she waves the plume over me. “Evil spirits away with you. Only angels and good fairies visit my daughter tonight,” she chants.
I jump from the bed and open the closet door; my mother shakes the feather at every corner. I shut the door and rush to lift the skirt of my bed. With the purple feather, my mother sweeps the floor beneath the bed and chants. I giggle as I stand at the door to the hallway. She wiggles the feather around the doorway then tickles me all over my body.
I run around her, and she chases me onto the bed. I bounce on my bed, and she replaces the feather into the jar next to the lamp.
My mother fluffs the pillow and slips the covers over my doll and me. I grip the ribboned edges of the blanket.
“Dream good dreams tonight, baby.” She kisses me on the cheek.
I touch my cheek and feel the sticky lipstick. “I don’t wanna be alone.”
She stops at the door; her shoulders stiffen into corners. “If you need anything, you just go next door. Mrs. Flores will let you in, but she’ll charge me if you go over.”
I stretch my arms out to my mommy. “I’m sad when you’re gone.”
She stands at the doorway, sparkling in the light. “I know, honey. I’m sorry.” She turns around. “Mommy has to go. You want Mommy to find a new daddy, don’t you?” The whine in her voice is as loud as mine.
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand.
My mom sighs, goes to the bathroom, and comes back clutching toilet paper. “Wipe your nose. I count on my big girl to help me out. I can count on you, can’t I? You understand why I have to go. I’m doing this for you as much as myself.”
I bury my face in the tissue and blow. She takes the knotted wad from me and drops it into the basket next to my bed.
“I’m so very proud of you.” My mom tucks the sheet around my shoulders. “The best daughter in the whole wide world. I love you, sweetie.” She kisses my forehead. “You have to be the best daughter in the whole wide world to help your mommy. Okay?”
I watch my mother walk to the door then flick off the bedroom light.
“Look, I’ve left the light on in my bedroom. You’ll be able to see if you want.” She disappears down the hallway, the sounds of her footsteps disappearing with her.
I reach over to the lamp but stop. I sniff and smell the scorch of Dragon flames. Quick, I hug my knees and smile at the light coming from my mother’s bedroom.
Light is where mommy is.
I listen to the sounds of leaving. The rustle of her coat. The tap of her shoes. The door shuts behind my mother. The lock clicks loud. The best daughter in the whole wide world lies with her eyes bolted wide open and listens to the noises, picking apart the house-talking sounds from the Dragon sounds. The kiss on my forehead grows cold as the room fills with shadows that stalk and haunt.
Jewel Speak
Wasted Brains
Mom’s quite smart about
doing dumb really well.
Once she’s talking to one of
her many possible husbands, when
he asks how does she know so much?
Mom tucked her smarts so far
back inside her head, I think, she
forgot how smart she really is.
Mom believes most men act like they’re
some chest-pounding,
vine-swinging hero,
but they’re really fragile inside.
It’s up to women to take care of
them, at the same time, letting them
think they’re doing all the decision-making.
Seems to me this
waste of a good brain
shows no respect for
either person.
The Throw Away Piece
Adult Fiction Word Count: 57,700
SETTING: San Antonio, TX in a local high school
CHARACTERS:
JEWEL: sixteen-year-old girl whose mother dumps her into foster care because her mother’s latest boyfriend threatens to leave. To cope with her mother’s abandonment, Jewel develops her own private language, a type of ungrammatical English she calls Jewel Speak. She dresses in high top sneakers with no shoelaces and in a mishmash of colors and styles. She spray-paints her hair to match what she wears.
ANGELA: Jewel’s mother is unable to protect herself or her daughter because she believes only a man can keep her safe. The men she chooses dominate her and treat Jewel as their private possession.
GRACE CLARKE: the social worker who is assigned Jewel’s case. She is emotionally distant and on the verge of losing her husband because of her fear of intimacy.
RAUL ORTEGA: the cop who picks up Jewel for shoplifting. He wants only the best for his son, Julian, who attends school with Jewel and feels that being a strict authoritarian parent will insure his son’s success.
TOM GARNER: the high school homeroom teacher assigns Jewel to tutor another student. Tom hopes this will raise her self-esteem, and she’ll hook up with a nicer bunch of kids.
RONNIE MENDOZA: the student Jewel has to tutor. They become good friends. Jewel believes that Ronnie may be falling in love with her until her fantasy is bashed when she meets his girlfriend.
JULIAN ORTEGA: Raul’s son and Ronnie’s best friend. He becomes Jewel’s friend.
GLEN THOMPSON: Grace’s husband.
OPENING:
Jewel speaks to the readers about life with her mother filled with magic feathers that ward away evil and sticky-lipstick goodnight kisses. Yet the little girl is left alone at night while her mother goes out to find the man that will make dreams come true.
TONE:
A rebellious foster child defies and confronts the indifferent systems and affects the lives of those involved with her. Because the help Jewel offers is an automatic response, she isn’t aware of the impact she has on others. When her mother commits suicide, Jewel believes she has failed at the one task she had to do: earn her mother’s love. Jewel, believing that she has no impact on this world or anyone in it, takes an overdose of pills.
Each chapter ends with a ‘Jewel Speak’ section. In this section, Jewel’s thoughts and observations on the behavior of adults, society, and how to live are spelled out.
SITUATION:
Raised in a make-believe world where dragons represent her mother’s latest boyfriend and a big purple feather chases away evil, Jewel learns to defend herself at an early age. Recognizing her mother’s inability to make the right decisions, Jewel becomes her mother’s guardian angel. When Jewel fights against the abuse, her mother’s latest boyfriend gets Jewel thrown out by offering the mother marriage. Jewel enters the Foster Care System. Jewel protests, changes her speech pattern to what she refers to as ‘Jewel Speak’, and insists she will not correct her grammar until her mother returns for her.
Though her life has been flipped upside down by an immature mother, Jewel is strong. She responds to her environment by bringing the people around her in touch with their own feelings. She is the catalyst that brings two teachers together, teaches her social worker to stop fearing intimacy thereby preventing a divorce, and shows a hard-nosed cop that everything isn’t black and white.
The book reflects all the tragedies one child suffers in a world designed by ‘The System’ to help children. Through it all, Jewel continues to strive for excellence in herself and in others.
Jewel will never let you forget her, or the winding path she’s been forced down.
THE STORY:
JEWEL describes her life as a child with her mother and the kind of predicaments she becomes ensnared in by living with her mother’s latest boyfriends.
Because she fought off her mother’s latest boyfriend, he promises her mother marriage and a home if she gets rid of Jewel. GRACE CLARKE, the social worker, picks up Jewel. This is when she begins her “Jewel Speak.”
Jewel offers uncanny views on the court system she is subjected to in the processes of being kept safe.
Before Grace leaves for work in the morning, she and GLEN discuss the difficulties they are facing in their marriage.
RAUL ORTEGA tells his wife, IRMA, of the young girl he picked up that day and how he found her odd. When his son, JULIAN, arrives home from school, he and his son argue over what is appropriate for his future.
Julian speaks to his mother about want he wants to do for college and his fears that his father will disapprove. Julian believes that his father will hate him forever.
When Jewel is moved into her fourth placement, Jewel befriends an older foster child, NORMA, who is hurt by the stigma imposed on her for being in foster care. Norma believes that a boy employed at the neighborhood grocery store has an interest in her because he asked for her name. Norma’s heart is broken when she learns the boy’s sole interest in her is the fact that she’s a State Kid, and store policy dictates only one State Kid on the property at a time. That night, Norma jumps out of the window. State Kids can bounce back from anything.
TOM GARNER, the teacher, selects Jewel to tutor RONNIE MENDOZA.
When Tom is alone at home, he thinks about his previous marriage and its downfall. Tom is infatuated with the Health Ed teacher, SYMONNE. Jewel spots this infatuation and with the aid of Ronnie and Julian brings the two adults together.
Jewel and Ronnie become best friends.
Raul is outraged that he has “caught” his son with Jewel.
Jewel’s hope grows when she interprets Ronnie’s concern as caring for her but is disappointed when she is introduced to his girlfriend.
Jewel runs to her mother for comfort and finds that she has attempted suicide. She cleans her up, cares for her, and calls the paramedics who are familiar with her mother’s reactions to the disappointments over her boyfriends.
Raul tells his son, Julian, that Jewel ran away. Julian has a black eye, and Raul finds out that Julian and Ronnie fought several guys when they called Jewel a “State Kid.”
Grace, the social worker, and Tom, the high school teacher, discuss what should be the best way to handle Jewel’s situation. Tom believes Jewel needs to stay where she is so she can find out that people care for her. Grace intends to move Jewel to a more structured educational environment.
Jewel clashes with the social worker about being moved to another school and foster home, skips school, and hangs out at a skinhead friend’s apartment, where she is raped.
Raul Ortega is among those who raid the apartment. In the process, he is shot. Jewel saves his life.
Three young women from Ronnie’s group visit Jewel and invite her to join their group. They befriend her, and Jewel finds it impossible to believe they don’t have an underlying motive for their actions.
Jewel and Raul speak in his hospital room, and she explains how he must learn to trust his son by listening to what he does. (An old title: Listen to What I Do)
Raul and Julian speak and clear up their differences. Raul tells his son that he loves him.
Grace breaks down and tells her husband about her fears, and they promise to stay together.
Tom and Symonne remark on how much they owe Jewel for bringing them together.
Ronnie celebrates with Julian and his girlfriend, MARISELA, about the top grade he earned in passing the exam. In celebration, he buys Jewel an assortment of fluorescent-colored shoelaces.
Grace reports to Jewel that her mother committed suicide. Jewel goes to the funeral home to have the purple feather placed in her mother’s casket.
Jewel feels alone. She has always felt responsible for taking care of her mother. With her mother’s death, Jewel believes she has failed. She can’t see how her life contributes to anyone or anything and takes an overdose of pills.
Grace and her husband, Glen, Tom and Symonne, and Ronnie and his whole group of friends attend the funeral to lend support to Jewel at her mother’s funeral. Jewel turns away from them. Grace and Tom explain to Jewel how she has affected their lives. They say it is time for her to have a life of her own. She joins Ronnie and his group of friends and asks for a ride home. As they drive away, Ronnie tells her they are friends. Jewel isn’t sure what that means but prepares to stay a while to find out.
bronzeword
