Pieces of Georgia

by Jen Bryant

Like her mother, Georgia McCoy is an artist, but her dad looks away whenever he sees her with a sketchbook. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like when her mother was still alive . . . when they were a family . . . when they were happy. But then a few days after her 13th birthday, Georgia receives an unexpected gift–a strange, formal letter, all typed up and signed anonymous–granting her free admission to the Brandywine River Museum for a whole year. And things begin to change.
An accessible novel in poems, Pieces of Georgia offers an endearing protagonist–an aspiring artist, a grieving daughter, a struggling student, a genuine friend–and the poignant story of a broken family coming together.

Genres: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, Poetry, Novel In Verse, Middle Grade, Fiction, Friendship

176 pages, Paperback

First published April 11, 2006

About the author

Jen Bryant (Jennifer Fisher Bryant) writes picture books, novels and poems for readers of all ages. Her biographical picture book: A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, illustrated by Melissa Sweet,received a Caldecott Honor award and her historical novel in verse RINGSIDE 1925: Views from the Scopes Trial is an Oprah Recommended Book for ages 12 & up. Other titles include Pieces of Georgia (IRA Young Adult Choices Pick), The Trial (about the 1935 Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial), a 1960’s-era novel Kaleidoscope Eyes (a Jr. Library Guild selection), Georgia’s Bones, celebrating the creative vision of artist Georgia O’Keeffe, Music for the End of Time, based on a true story about WWII, and Abe’s Fish: A Boyhood Tale of Abraham Lincoln.

Jen has taught writing and Children’s Literature at West Chester University and Bryn Mawr College and gives lectures, workshops and school presentations throughout the year. She lives with husband, daughter and their Springer Spaniel in Chester County, PA.

Reviews

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely. This book is very deceiving. On one hand, it looks like a tiny, cheesy middle grade novel, but it's actually powerful, emotional, compelling and filled with sophisticated allusions to art and culture.

Georgia is mourning the death of her mother, all while dealing with bullying, living in poverty and navigating middle school. The school counselor gives her a journal and the poems included in this book are the entries...letters to her mother.

This book is a journey with touches of mystery, stuffed full of lessons perfect for middle schoolers, and beautifully crafted.

It's astounding that I haven't heard of it before. Loved it. Can't wait to share with my students.

[Daniella Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very interesting and its out going and I would to read more of it and I like how it Is in the beginning. I would like to see if there are more books of it .

[Nena P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it- I have just the student that would connect with this book. I like the style- written in verse, and I like the narration.

[Lilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book Pieces of Georgia is about a young girl whose name is Georgia. Georgia lost her mother at a very young age due to pneumonia and she now lives with her father in a trailer on a horse farm. Her father is very shy and works in construction, he is gone most of the day so Georgia is always alone with her moms dog Blake. Georgia has to go to the counselor at school and she gave her a red journal to write in, she was supposed to write to her mother in the journal. In the beginning of the book Georgia got a year-long membership to an art museum and that really changed her life. This book is 5 stars in my opinion because even though it seems like a dumb middle school book it has a lot of emotion and really tells a good story.
"So I Guess I'll go by myself, after all. Tomorrow. Right after school. This is one of those times, Momma, I really do wish you were here."(Bryant,38) One reason that I gave this book a 5 is because in the book you can see how much Georgia misses her mother. And you can see how much she wishes that she was there so that she could help Georgia with certain things that are important to her in life especially drawing. Another reason why I gave this book a 5 is because it really gives an inside look to what she is going through grieving her mother after so long, and how she finally accepts the fact that she is gone. In this book it also gives an insight on how Georgia really is mature and steps up in her family. She does not expect to get anything in return.
In conclusion this book is very well written and tells the story perfectly. This book is great for a younger audience to read and covers many different topics that can be difficult in peoples lives. Some topics that this book talks about is substance abuse and grief. Overall this book is very inspiring and it shows that even if you are young you have to work your hardest and you will achieve great things.

[Sophie P-V · Rating 4 out of 5]

4th Quarter 4th Choice book
***SPOILER ALERT***
This book was pretty good! I loved how it was written, it was actually one fo my first books i have read in verse. So, the begging of the book starts out by introducing the characters, and giving ideas of setting, and situation. For example, the main character's name is Georgia, she lives with her dad (her mom died). They live in a trailer. Also, she meets with he school counselor, because she is on the "at risk" list at her school, because her mom died, and they live in a trailer. Also, she has a best friend named tiffany, who is in a lot of sports, and lives int he house development next to her. Georgia helps out on someone's farm, grooming and caring for a show horse, named Ella. One of the interesting parts of this book, is when she receives and letter for her birthday, in it is a membership tot he art museum. She loves it! she ends up going tot he museum almost everyday after school, and she loves to look at all the art! She also enjoys drawing very much and she is an artist, she even applies for an art grant. At the end of the book, a lot is revealed. She finds out the membership was from her dad! She finds out that she got into the artist's grant, (out of 400+ entries, and 100 winners were picked). We find out that she also got into this thing at her school, called the "Longwood School District Artistically Gifted Program" which is a big deal for her! That's how the book ends, on a happy positive note!
I recommend this book to people who like to read realistic fiction books, also this books is just written in verse form, but it's not to different that a realistic fiction. It was a great book, and the size was pretty good, only about a little over 150 pages. So this is a great shorter book. Overall this is a great book and a pretty easy read, defiantly recommend this book! loved it!

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

part of this book takes place in an art museum, and i wasn't looking forward to an author note saying that everything in the book was from her imagination, instead Jen Bryant uses a museum that exists and that i Have to go see now. It was as vivid as The Met in Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which i went to see because of that book.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A narrative of grief, friendship, and a love of art written in verse. Very quick and enjoyable.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this little book. It was really sweet and charming. It grew on me because it was written as a journal of this little girl trying to cope with living with her dad and missing her mom, and figuring out where she fits in. I absolutely loved that she was a little artist like her mom and the relationship between Georgia, her father, her teachers, her friends, and writing to her mom. I loved it because when my favorite Aunt, who I was really close to died, I wrote her letters for a while in my journal explaining how much I missed her and reminding her of my life, and I was even 19 when I wrote those. It was sweet the way the book played out and the form of it. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, because it is about loss and being shy and making sure that you know you are worth something.


WARNINGS

Violence: 0/5

Drugs: 1/5 Georgia's friend ends up taking Ritalin to try to keep up among with some other "focusing" pills.

Sex: 0/5 There aren't references to sex. It is a sweet, simple book where sex hasn't reached the minds of these kids yet.

Alcohol: 0/5

Language: 0/5

[Calle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very tuching and this girl must go through a hard time at home. I realy recamend this book to girls and lotsofmpeople bacuseu will understand what people go through


The book begins when Georgia, an aspiring artist, receives an anonymous gift of a free membership to an art museum. Georgia's father has become emotionally withdrawn since the death of his wife. He works all the time, leaving Georgia alone in the afternoons with there dog. She begins visiting the museum after school, but never mentions these this to her father. Georgia's mother had been an artist, too, and Georgia feels that the memory of her mother's artwork would be too painful for her father. BUtshe finaly does tall her father and he mad at first but then gets over it.

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how Jen Bryant wrote this book (the structure). It's journal entries by a 7th grade girl, Georgia, who is trying to puzzle out events leading up to and following her mother's death - get "closure." I wish I felt comfortable putting this book on the shelves of my 6th grade classroom, but references to drugs and a friend who actually abuses Ritalin is not the best combination for my kids right now. Even though the lesson in the end is not to use them, I think my kids can choose to read this book at a later age. The drawings in the books are sweet, and I did love seeing Georgia grow into an amazing individual. It's a quick read and one I think many would enjoy.

[stillme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I don't usually like novels written in free verse, or cliched poor orphans, I ended up loving this one. It ends hopefully without being cheesy or too neat.
Lone Star List 2008-2009

[JoEllen Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book because it invokes a lot if emotion about a subject that is close to me right now. Very simple and easy to read, but sometimes the simplest things are the most beautiful.

[Jade Rodriguez-Falcon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading the book Pieces of Georgia by Jen Bryant. This book is about and 7 grader who is writing in a diary that she got from her teacher and she has to write her feeling and how she write her feeling is letter that she is writing for her dead mother who got sick and passed away. She lives with her dad in a trailer. Her art teacher gave her this suggestion that she could send 5 or her best art pieces and they’ll be judge by 10 judges. She has a best friend named Tiffany she said they are opposites but they get more along then her old best friend which she was out like a twin she said. Georgia and her dad don’t really talk since her mother died. After a while she wondered what it was like to have grandparents because she never had grandparents so she saw her dad take this box from the shelf in their trailer with a bunch of addresses on it. When her dad left she took the box and look through the box to see if she can find her grandparents address to send them a letter to let her know that she is fine and alive but the address was scratched out. It came to the day where she had to submit her drawings so she down to their art teacher and they went over them. The art teacher summit them. After a while she made good friends with the nurse and she found out that she liked this letter that she got free membership to the museum and 10 percent off any item in the gift shop and then let it was name anonymous but she found out it was her nurse who gave her the letter because she found a copy of it in the nurses office. After she got the results back from her drawings and she won the competition after she receives the money she helped your dad out with a lot of things and her dad was able to take time off work and it will not work so much and since she won the money her dad and her became closer and she still wrote to her mother. I rate this book ten out of ten.

[Dest · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 6th grader had to read this for school so I thought I'd read along.

It's a quick read with a lot of familiar tropes: a dead parent, the other parent struggling with grief, a shy horse girl who loves to draw. George lives in a trailer, while her closest friend Tiffany lives in a big house. They are opposites in many ways, but get along really well.

The only thing that surprised me in this book was Tiffany getting addicted to Ritalin to keep up with all her sports and school commitments. It reminded me of that Saved by the Bell episode where Jessie confesses to Zack that she's so scared.

There's a lot in this book about the Wyeth family of artists, which I'm not super familiar with, so it didn't resonate much for me. My daughter and I looked at some of the paintings online and it still didn't affect either of us much. There's no accounting for taste! Georgia is deeply affected by visiting the Brandywine Museum and looking at the art.

The book is meant to be a journal George is keeping, but it doesn't feel like a realistic depiction of what a 7th grader would write. It's also in verse, which, at my most cynical, I think is just a trick authors use to keep the book short while maintaining a novel-length page count.

Nothing terribly dramatic happens to Georgia in this book (except, of course, the death of her mother, which is in the past but difficult for Georgia to remember). This is mostly a mellow story of her recovering her sense of possibility and connecting with her dad.

[Christina Vega · Rating 5 out of 5]

As it says on the cover," A Remarkable Book." Well, its true for many reasons. I love the quotes since they are something I feel I can relate to. For example in the text this is one quote,"When I get and idea that means a lot to me, I just bury myself in it. I can relate to that when I get ideas because I develop them and I really find a meaning to them. Anyways this isn't about me so lets get onto what the book is about. This book is about a girl named Georgia Mcoy who loves art. She loves drawing and pastels because her mom WAS an artist. Georgia knows her mom is not with her but in this story it is her life she is telling to her dead mom. Her dad on the other hand does not always support Georgia for her creative art work since mostly it is hard for him not to remember his wife because they both love art. Georgia's struggles with this competition for a worldwide school that is based on art. It benefits her school like with money for art. In the text it states,"She clicked on the link at the top labeled winners and scrolled down slowly through names that were listed in alphabetical order, until!" To find out what happens next, read the book because I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. I would totally recommend this people who love art because there are quotes that are about art just like the one I stated earlier.

[Sheridan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 -
A nice, easy novel in verse about a young girl coming to terms with her mother's death and reacquainting herself with her somewhat detached father, while embracing the best parts of each of them in an attempt to find who she herself wants to be. Georgia is an artist like her mother which her still-mourning father silently wishes she wouldn't be. When Georgia receives a mysterious birthday membership to a local art museum, she thinks she'll only keep her visits there a secret from her father until he is in a better mood to hear about it - but when Georgia's art teacher asks her to enter into competition for an artistic grant, her secrets become easier and easier to hide. All the while, her guidance counsellor has asked Georgia to write a journal as if her mother could read it - we get her story in the entries addressed to her mom.

Georgia is in the 8th grade, but her language comes across much younger than that. Because of the Southern States' drawl and addresses to 'Momma' and 'Daddy', my students would probably assume she was much younger than she is. For that, and because the subject matter is so straightforward, I'll rec this to my grade 6s or some grade 7s looking for an easy read.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a lovely book. Written in free verse that is mostly more like short text so it all just flows very quickly, this was a fairly quick read. Georgia’s friendship with Tiffany, a girl who is everything Georgia is not (rich, athletic, popular, etc.) is a really nice solid center of the story. When Tiffany begins to not act like herself Georgia is worried but, realistically, not sure what to do. The other main part of the story is Georgia’s development of her artistic skill, which she inherited from her mother and thus, she feels she has to hide from dad. An anonymous gift of a membership to an art museum provides inspiration, reflection, and artistic growth for Georgia. I really liked the parts of the book where she observes and thinks about the Wyeth paintings. I also liked the commentary about artists being observers. A solid thoughtful story, perhaps best suited for 6th grade or more mature readers.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pieces of Georgia was so out there. There were so many things that were hard for Georgia but slowly and gradually her life becoming easier. This book had it's own sense of creativity and security when you are reading it. Pieces of Georgia was so real and lonely feeling but I think that's what made it so good because you felt it and could see the gears in Georgia's mind working. I think why I like this book is because there is a lot of artistic details and the problems that go with this book CAN be hard to understand but the way Jennifer Fisher Bryant made it was to see and really understand what Georgia did, wanted to do, what she couldn't and how she was stored up but couldn't release all her emotions because she didn't have that person to talk to.
I would totally recommend this book to anyone who appreciates art, or wants to read one of those difficult moment books,

[Mrs. Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like her mother, Georgia McCoy is an artist, but her dad looks away whenever he sees her with a sketchbook. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like when her mother was still alive . . . when they were a family . . . when they were happy. But then a few days after her 13th birthday, Georgia receives an unexpected gift–a strange, formal letter, all typed up and signed anonymous–granting her free admission to the Brandywine River Museum for a whole year. And things begin to change.
An accessible novel in poems, Pieces of Georgia offers an endearing protagonist–an aspiring artist, a grieving daughter, a struggling student, a genuine friend–and the poignant story of a broken family coming together.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pieces of Georgia took a lot longer to read than it should have done as I was forever looking up the paintings that were mentioned. The book was basically a journal written by thirteen-year-old Georgia to her dead mother as she struggles with the loss. Sadly, I didn't feel any emotional connection to Georgia, although she did show maturity considering her age. The plot was underwhelming and I thought the story needed to be fleshed out more. Overall, an okay story for younger readers but not a memorable one.

[TheNextGenLibrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this prose/journal entry novel from Bryant. It reminded me of Gary D. Schmidt’s writing and characters. Georgia broke my heart over and over again and made me want to take her home with me. This is a great novel for teaching kids about loss, making the smart/right decisions, no matter what, not to push yourself too hard, follow your dreams no matter what and believe in yourself. Such a great middle grade realistic fiction novel.

[Marisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Former CT Nutmeg nominee from 2010. Technology doesn’t date this short book. It’s written for the younger side of middle school but attempts to deal with some YA topics, but in a Babysitter’s club type of writing. Wished it was longer for a more developed art plot line.
Opening line for book talk: can a mystery envelope from anonymous change your life?”

[Saskia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

Good verse novel about an early teen girl and the pressures of grief and poverty, as well as living up to / not living up to expectations of a parent. Great art references, a wee bit of pathos, but not enough to warrant the format imho.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW: grief, death of a parent, drug abuse (Ritilin)

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story about art and loss, and connection. Georgia's mother has died, and her counselor suggest she writes in a diary letters to her momma. Told in verse, Georgia learns to appreciate her artistic talent and reconnect with her grieving father.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a grieving kid, Georgia does alright in the end. I enjoyed reading about her struggle with her mom’s passing. Having lost family in my life, I understand the sense of loss. I love the little bit of mystery provided too.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another sweet, emotional entry into the novels in verse genre. I enjoyed this character and rooted for her all along. I would hope this would spur young readers to look at some of the art that is referenced in here. I enjoy endings that wrap up nicely.

[Norma · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 12 year old suggested I read this book and I’m so glad I did

[Karyn Buchanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young artist spends a year writing in a diary notes to her dead Momma. A compelling piece, a wonderful read. Art is important and Jen Bryant is a true artist with words.

[Holland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Georgia McCoy is a artist though her father despises it because it reminds him of her mother, one day Georgia get a free admission to a local museum.And doesn't know if her father will ever accept her love and passion for art. I liked this book because of how real it was it wasn't like nothing like this could happen ever it was very real

[Alanah Casale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this when I was maybe 14? LOVED it!