Grimes - Jazmins Notebook

Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff Walter Dean Myers

Growin Nikki Grimes

Let the Circle Be Unbroken Mildred Taylor

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Mildred Taylor

Wont Know Till I Get There Walter Dean Myers

PUFFIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto. Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published in the United States of America by Dial Books, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998

Published by Puffin Books, a member of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2000

Copyright Nikki Grimes, 1998

All rights reserved

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE DIAL EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Grimes, Nikki.

Jazmins notebook / Nikki Grimes.

p. cm.

Summary: Jazmin, an African-American teenager who lives with her sister in a small Harlem apartment in the 1960s, finds strength in writing poetry and keeping a record of the events in her sometimes difficult life.

1. Afro-AmericansJuvenile fiction. [1. Afro-AmericansFiction. 2. AuthorshipFiction. 3. PoetryFiction. 4. DiariesFiction. 5. SistersFiction. 6. Harlem (New York, N.Y.)Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.G88429Jan 1998 [Fic]dc21 97-5850 CIP AC

ISBN: 978-1-101-66736-1

Version_1

For my sister, Carol,
who helped me beat the odds

I am deeply grateful to my editor, Toby Sherry, for her wise guidance, enthusiastic support, and unflagging faith in this project.

Many thanks, as well, go to her former assistant, Victoria Wells, for her sharp-eyed observations and helpful notes.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to poet Rasul Murray, authors Ann Braybrook and Michelle Y. Green, and friend Toppin Martin. Their perceptive questions, comments, and suggestions helped me tremendously. Thanks, guys!

First, last, and always, I thank God for allowing me to do the work that I love.

A ccording to my sister, CeCe, the night before I was born, Mom and Dad sat in the living room, timing Moms early contractions and arguing about my name during the minutes in between. They both agreed on the name itself, but spent half the night fighting about the spelling.

CeCe was six years old at the time, and would have been fast asleep, except that the tenement our family lived in on Lenox & 133rd was the size of a Cracker Jack box, with walls twice as thin, and sound carried easily from room to room. CeCe, in bed at the other end of the apartment, remembers laying wide-awake that night, listening to every word. She couldnt understand everything she heard, of course, but years later Mom filled in the details.

Apparently my father wanted my name to be a sort of homage to jazz. He sold insurance for a living, but he was a frustrated sax man, and he figured if he couldnt spend his life playing jazz, he at least ought to be able to honor his love of Americas only original art form by making it part of his baby daughters name. He said this while Duke Ellingtons Sophisticated Lady serenaded Mom from the stereo, mind you, so its no wonder she got the hint. Fine, she said. Were well into the 50s, so why not really be modern and use a y in place of the i, while youre at it. But Dad said that was carrying uniqueness a bit too far. Besides, he argued, with a y instead of an i, people would be confused about the right way to pronounce the name. He won the argument, eventually, and so my birth certificate reads Jazmin Shelby. Thats Jazmin with a z.

Now, that phrase might sound cute, but sometimes I find it downright annoying because I know Ill have to go through life repeating it over and over again. No one seems to get the spelling right on the first or second try.

I think its great that Mom and Dad went to the trouble of making my name unique. But Ive often considered changing it to Sally, or Linda, or maybe Jane, as in See Jane run. Thats one spelling everyone can manage. Of course, that kind of name wouldnt last me any longer than my straight perm did because Im my own me, nappy hair and all, and truth is, Jazmin suits me best.

Folks will figure out how to spell my name sooner or later, I suppose, especially after they see it splashed across the jacket of my future best-seller (smile). Meanwhile, Ive got my work cut out.