“There’s a moment in the book where Sage learns that grief is like hunger and that she will always be grieving like there’s never going to be a day that we don’t need to eat,…I can have breakfast, and then by dinnertime, I need to eat again, and next week I’m going to need a meal, and three years from now, I’m going to be hungry. That was freeing for me as a person. It wasn’t just a plot point or something to just put in the book. It was really what I needed for myself to understand that I would always miss my mother, or that there will always be some issue that we’re fighting against and standing up for in this nation, and that I can hold all of that. That’s normal and I’m okay.”
― Renée Watson, Interview, School Library Journal
What booksellers are saying about All the Blues in the Sky
- The story follows the main character on her journey towards healing after the tragic and untimely death of her best friend. This book really captures what grief looks like. It’s very poignant and moving. Beautiful!.
― Sheri Bancroft, Novel., Memphis, Tennessee | BUY
- All the Blues in the Sky will break your heart and then show you how to piece it back together. Readers will quickly immerse themselves in Sage’s grief as the novel in verse storytelling guides us along the healing process. Watson’s writing is beautiful, uplifting, and deeply sad. But helps reveal that grief is different for each of us, but together we can figure it out. Be warned: Thirteen-year-old grief will hit you differently. You may need tissues.
― Jenny Gilroy, E. Shaver, Bookseller, Savannah, Georgia | BUY
- This beautiful book captures the experience of grief in a way that feels real and easy to connect with. Renée Watson does an amazing job of showing the raw and honest emotions of grief while still making it approachable. AS an an adult who struggles with processing loss, this is a book I was I had when I was younger.
― Lupe Penn, Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, North Carolina | BUY
About Renée Watson
| Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Her novel All the Blues in the Sky won the Newbery Medal, and Piecing Me Together received a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award. Her books include the Ryan Hart series, Some Places More Than Others, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, Betty Before X, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz, Watch Us Rise, cowritten with Ellen Hagan, and Love Is a Revolution, as well as acclaimed picture books: Summer Is Here, Maya’s Song, The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, written with Nikole Hannah-Jones, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, and Harlem’s Little Blackbird, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Renée splits her time between Portland, Oregon and New York City. http://www.reneewatson.net • @reneewauthor |
