Module 14 - all the broken pieces

All the Broken Pieces

by Ann E. Burg

ISBN 978-0-545-08092-7

Summary:

Matt Pin was adopted out of Vietnam during the war.  He lives with an American family and must confront his past.  The book is written in verse, which simply and powerfully tells Matt's story.  He tries out for the school baseball team and must deal with antiwar sentiments from other students while dealing with his own haunted past in Vietnam.   

My Impressions:

This was a very moving novel.  When I was in school, we did not learn about the Vietnam War.  It wasn't until I was in college and took a mass communication class that I first studied the war.  I like that younger students will be able to learn more about this war.  Ann Burg has done an incredible job telling Matt's story in verse.  Each chapter starts with a picture of the bass clef and ends with five lines, which I assume are supposed to be the staff lines of the music.  Matt plays the piano and it, and the piano teacher, are key in helping him through his trauma.  Baseball is also an important element in this book and Matt's healing begins on the baseball field.  I think this is a good book for students because they can take the deep information and pain in small, verse-sized chunks.

Professional Reviews:

In 1977, 12-year-old Matt Pin lives a fractured life. He is the son of a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier and was airlifted to safety from the war zone. Adopted by a caring American couple, he has vivid and horrific memories of the war and worries about the fates of his mother and badly injured little brother. Matt's adoptive family adores him, and he is the star pitcher for his middle school baseball team, but there are those who see his face and blame him for the deaths of the young men they lost in the war. The fractured theme runs the course of this short novel in verse: Matt's family, the bodies and hearts of the Vietnam vets, the country that is "only a pocketful of broken pieces" that Matt carries inside him. Ultimately, everythingbroken is revealed as nonetheless valuable. While most of the selections read less like poems and more like simple prose, the story is a lovely, moving one. Use this in a history class or paired with Katherine Applegate's Home of the Brave (Feiwel & Friends, 2007).  Campbell, H.M.  (2009).  All the broken pieces.  School Library Journal, 55(5), 101.

Having Fun in the Library:

This would be a good book to introduce a poetry unit with the English teacher or collaborate with the history teacher for a unit about Vietnam.

Burg, A.E. (2009).  All the broken pieces.  New York: Scholastic Press.