Patina by Jason Reynolds

"I probably should introduce myself. My name is Patina Jones. And I ain't no junk. I also ain't no hair flipper. And most of the girls at Chester Academy are hair flippers who be looking at me like my mum some kind of junk maker. But ain't none of them got the guts to come out of their mouths with no craziness. They just turn and flip their dingy ponytails toward me like I care. Tuh. I guess it's no secret that it's never easy being the new girl."

Publisher blurb: Patina, or Patty, runs like a flash. She runs for many reasons—to escape the taunts from the kids at the fancy-schmancy new school she’s been sent to ever since she and her little sister had to stop living with their mom. She runs from the reason WHY she’s not able to live with her “real” mom anymore: her mom has The Sugar, and Patty is terrified that the disease that took her mom’s legs will one day take her away forever. And so Patty’s also running for her mom, who can’t. But can you ever really run away from any of this? As the stress builds, it’s building up a pretty bad attitude as well. Coach won’t tolerate bad attitude. No day, no way. And now he wants Patty to run relay…where you have to depend on other people? How’s she going to do THAT?

Here are some text quotes:

"And just so you don't get the wrong idea, it' not like my mum just wanted her legs cut off. She got the sugar. Well, it's really a disease called diabetes, but she calls it the sugar, so I call it the sugar, plus I like that better than diabetes because diabetes got the word 'die' in it, and I hate that word."

"Here at Chester, as long as your face is selfie-ready 100 percent of the time, you got a chance. A chance at what? Well, I don't really know. All I know it, I ain't got one."

"My uncle's voice, when he's speaking like a regular human being, is deep, but not in a scary way. He has one of those voices that you wish you could touch, wrap yourself up like a blanket. A voice like a dad. And I guess ... like an uncle. A favourite uncle."

'It's like the less numbers in your bank account, the more numbers in your address."

It is the characters from these stories that will linger with you. I love Patty's relationship with her little sister Maddy. I love the quiet restrained wisdom of Coach. Patty is so lucky to live with her aunt and uncle. And Patty herself has a wonderful level of maturity especially when it comes to dealing with her school relationships and the girls in her project group. Studying Freda Kahlo seemed like the perfect topic for Patty and I have no idea how he does it, but Jason Reynolds completely convinced me that he truly understands girls, African American girls and girls on the cusp of the teenage years. At times I felt as though I was also running with the track team and completing in the relay races passing those slippery batons. 

Writing in Patty’s voice, Reynolds creates a fully dimensional, conflicted character whose hard-earned pragmatism helps her bring her relay team together, negotiate the social dynamics of the all-girls, mostly white private school she attends, and make the best of her unusual family lot. When this last is threatened, readers will ache right alongside her. Kirkus Star review

Patina is the second book in the Track series. I previously talked about Ghost. 

If you only add one series to your school library this term make it these. The new title is Coach. I love the covers - how terrific these will look on your shelves:

Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—

a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. 

They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, 

but to themselves. Simon and Schuster

Jason Reynolds's writing doesn’t hit a single bad note here. The dialogue is crisp, the characters are believable, and it's a beautiful, flawless reading experience that will hook reluctant readers (especially those into sports). Book Trust

This novel tackles everything from parental illness and disability, the loss of a parent, and adjusting to a new socioeconomic condition. I would highly recommend this novel to sports-loving and non-sports-loving kids and adults alike. Reading Middle Grade

The publisher page has a story extract and discussion questions. 

There were parts of this book which reminded me of this one:

So. B. It