lucky broken girl book review

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Lucky Broken Girl is about so much more than you think…An Interview with Ruth Behar

Based on the author’s childhood in the 1960s,  Lucky Broken Girl  (2017) is a multicultural coming-of-age novel for young adults. As a former scholar and university professor myself, I am familiar with Ruth Behar’s work.  She is a very successful scholar in academia. I was an undergraduate when I heard her speak about her book,  Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s story  (1993), a book based on ten years of fieldwork in a rural town in Mexico, and I was a graduate student when her second book,  The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart,  came out .  Ms. Behar  was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Grant”, in 1988.  This is a prize awarded to individuals who have shown “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”  That said, it is refreshing when scholars (who usually write for very specific/specialized audiences) turn to prose and YA books like  Lucky Broken Girl .

Ruth Behar:  Thank you, it’s such a pleasure to be in conversation with a fellow cultural anthropologist who is writing fiction! I’ll tell you, it’s been a magical experience for me to write fiction for young readers. I had always wanted to write fiction, but worried I wouldn’t be able to master the craft. I was so accustomed to basing my storytelling on observations, notes, and interviews with real people in real places that I wasn’t sure I’d know how to write from my imagination. Then I discovered that in writing fiction we make use of everything we know and don’t know, all the heartbreaks we’ve ever felt, all the regrets we’ve carried with us all our lives. I drew on that deep well of emotion, and on the memory of my struggles as both an immigrant child and a wounded child, and somehow I found myself writing fiction. Yet there was something ethnographic about the writing. I felt as if the main character, Ruthie, was telling me her story.  She was my “informant.” All I had to do was listen and write her story down. Once I could hear her voice, the writing poured out.

Ruth Behar:  I considered writing a memoir, but there was so much I didn’t remember about my childhood. I wanted to have the freedom to invent what I didn’t know. Most of all, I wanted the freedom to make things more magical than they had been. There’s a scene where the hospital attendants take Ruthie out on a stretcher to see and touch the snow. It is such a beautiful scene and feels so real. My mother, when she read it, was certain it had actually happened. But in fact I made it up!

MG:  Before the car accident, Ruthie’s chief goals are to graduate out of the “dumb class” for remedial students, to convince her parents to buy her go-go boots, and to play hopscotch with other kids in her Queens apartment building.  I loved that you were able to write a story about a child’s ability to “bounce back” from adversity and challenge.  Coming of Age story arcs are mostly about resiliency.  So much of your message is about our ability to maintain perspective, move forward, and overcome setbacks. How have your young fans responded to these major themes?

Ruth Behar:   I think the theme of resilience has allowed young readers to identify with the book. All young people have experienced a setback, or felt broken at some time in their lives. How you heal and become whole again after such adversity is an issue that young readers want to learn about. They are searching for ways to be strong, ways to move forward with hope and self-assurance.

MG:  There is so much poetic language, the novel is full of vivid imagery which gives a glimpse into a child’s soul and her journey of self-discovery, what was it like to re-live some of these memories for you?

Ruth Behar:   Writing Lucky Broken Girl was an emotional process for me. Writing about people I loved who are now gone, like my maternal grandmother, brought tears to my eyes. I developed more empathy for my mother and father, as I thought about all the suffering they went through, my mother having to take care of me, and my father having to work three jobs to pay all the medical bills. I thought about my brother and how hard it must have been for him as a little boy to have to cope with a bedridden older sister. And strange as it may seem, I developed empathy for Ruthie, the little girl I had been once. At the time of the injury, I felt everyone’s exasperation as they waited for me to heal. I was often angry with myself that I couldn’t heal faster, that I wasn’t brave when I came out of the cast and didn’t just leap to my feet and start jumping around. Being bedridden for a year was such a traumatic experience that once I healed I tried to forget it happened. I think I became an anthropologist so I could be on the move, traveling from place to place, never being still. I’m glad I finally gave myself the chance to go on a journey into my childhood, an imaginative journey that opened me up to another form of self-discovery.

MG: Ruthie, like so many immigrant children, wants to embrace a better future, but also longs for the comfort of her family home and traditions, you did a great job in portraying this tension.  How do you think that these same concerns play out for young children of immigrants today? What is the same, what has changed?

Ruth Behar:   I think the tension remains similar today, between wanting to hold on to one’s heritage and wanting to embrace the vastness of American culture. What I feel has changed for young children of immigrants today is that there are many more resources now for affirming and celebrating one’s heritage. There are bilingual schools, for example, and there is now a huge multicultural children’s literature, which allows more children to see themselves reflected in books than was true in the past. When I was growing up, there weren’t any children’s books with Cuban-American characters, and now there are many to choose from. But while we have this exciting and growing literature that is bringing the joy of reading to many children, we are living in a tragic time of xenophobia and compassion fatigue about the plight of immigrants. Teaching all children that they belong, that no human being is illegal, has become an urgent mission.

MG:   I love that Ruthie had young immigrant friends, Belgian Danielle and Indian Ramu; her “flower power” tutor, Joy; and her vibrant Mexican neighbor, Chicho, an artist who teaches her about Frida Kahlo. How did you come up with these characters? Were any of them based on true acquaintances?

Ruth Behar:  They are all based on real people I knew, some more fictionalized than others. None of the names were their actual names. Danielle is based on my friend Dinah, who was actually from Belgium, and her mother did make delicious cream puffs for us. Chicho is based on an artsy neighbor I still remember, and Joy is based on my actual tutor, though quite reinvented. Ramu and his brother Avik are based on children who lived in our building but whom I didn’t know well. By writing about them, I wanted to get to know them better. Sadly, the death of Avik as described in the book actually happened and has haunted me (and my brother) since our childhood.

MG:  I love that Ruthie also prays and writes letters to God, Shiva, and Frida Kahlo.  It is the perfect homage to Ms. Kahlo in a novel that I consider to bring the best of intersectionality—ethnicity, religion, class, gender—to Ruthie’s imagination.  In my own novel, my character attends Gloria Anzaldua Middle School.  How do you think that our generation of writers are re-writing coming of age novels?

Ruth Behar:   I’m so glad you love the letters that Ruthie writes in Lucky Broken Girl . Those letters came spontaneously and offered another way to get inside Ruthie’s thoughts and feelings and to see both her spirituality and her spunkiness. Since she’s told by the doctor at the beginning of the story that she should be praying to God, the letters become her way of praying, but she goes beyond God and reaches out to other spirits, like Frida Kahlo, who is the guardian saint of wounded artists. I love how Ruthie questions the limits of her identity and wants to figure out how she can be Jewish and also embrace other forms of spirituality.

I think our generation of writers is connecting with the sources of inspiration that have been meaningful to us as Latinas, as immigrants, as women, as minorities. Frida Kahlo is a force in our lives, as is Gloria Anzaldúa, who I had the pleasure to know personally. We are part of a generation that came of age learning about ethnicity, religion, class gender, in very personal ways, as well as by reading the literature that emerged from concerns about these categories of identity. This is the zeitgeist of our era, to use a term I remember from my early days of discovering anthropology. We are bringing the sense of who we are and how we engage with the world into our coming-of-age novels because that is how we experience and imagine reality.

Ruth, thank you so much for joining Book Club Babble today.  It has been a real pleasure and we look forward to your next project.

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Lucky Broken Girl

Ruth Behar | 4.28 | 3,271 ratings and reviews

Ranked #79 in Cuba

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Summary and Study Guide

Lucky Broken Girl is a middle-grade historical novel by Ruth Behar. Main character Ruthie Mizrahi , an immigrant from Cuba, lives with her parents and brother in 1966 Queens. Together they try to quell their homesickness for Cuba while seeking new opportunities in America. When a car accident injures Ruthie, she becomes bedridden in a full body cast for over a year; during that time, challenges and fears she never anticipated give her a new perspective on life and luck. The novel, first published in 2017, draws heavily on Behar’s own childhood experiences and earned her the 2018 Pura Belpré Author Award. This guide follows the 2017 edition from Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

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Ten-year-old immigrant Ruth Mizrahi lives in Queens, a borough of New York City, in 1966. She and her family recently emigrated there from Cuba, leaving behind Fidel Castro’s communist rule. Ruthie works hard at school, learns English, and enjoys playing hopscotch after school with Danielle, a girl her age from Belgium. Mami tends the apartment and cooks meals while Papi works two jobs. Ruthie’s grandparents, as well as her Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Bill, live in the same building; other relatives and friends who also emigrated from Cuba live in different parts of New York.

Papi wants to take advantage of all the opportunities in America. He purchases an automobile with a loan from the bank. On the first day the family takes the car on a drive to visit friends, they are victims of a terrible accident. A young man, driving without permission and after drinking, loses control of his vehicle; it crosses the center barricade and hits the car in front of the Mizrahis, which then crashes into them. Injuries to Mami, Papi, Ruthie’s brother Isaac (Izzie), and Ruthie’s grandmother Baba are minor, but Ruthie sustains a badly broken leg that requires surgery and a week’s stay in the hospital.

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A doctor named Friendlich treats Ruthie and decides to place her in a body cast to prevent one leg from growing at a faster rate than the other. The cast goes from her toes to her chest; a metal pole between her ankles helps her parents flip her from back to stomach; openings in the cast allow her to use a bedpan. The doctor tells the Mizrahis they cannot move Ruthie from her bed for months.

Once settled back in their one-bedroom apartment, Ruthie must contend with boredom and fear. Mami suffers the majority of the burden of Ruthie’s care; she frequently lets others (including Ruthie) know that she is frustrated by the isolation and hard work Ruthie’s condition causes. Visitors stare and speak awkwardly to Ruthie before leaving quickly. Even her friend Danielle visits only once and stays just an uncomfortable minute. However, Ruthie’s friend Ramu Sharma writes her a note and sneaks in to visit despite his mother’s rule that he cannot be friends with non-Indian children. Ruthie sees that he is genuinely concerned about her, but when Ramu’s little brother tragically dies, the Sharmas return to India.

A new neighbor, Chicho , moves into the Sharmas’ apartment. Chicho is different from most visitors; he genuinely cares for Ruthie, paints fun images on her cast, and provides her with supplies so she can learn to paint as well.

Ruthie gets a replacement body cast for several more months; then Dr. Friendlich replaces this with a cast on her still-broken leg for two additional months. Finally, he removes the cast and gives her crutches. As her casts disappear, more fear sets in; Ruthie feels she may never remember how to walk. Two nurses give up on her because her resistance frustrates them; a third nurse, Amara , sticks with Ruthie and with a tough-love approach teaches her to walk on crutches. When it is time to give up the crutches and walk on her own two feet, Ruthie receives additional encouragement from Chicho and Danielle, eventually surmounting her fear of learning to walk again. Over the course of her healing time, Ruthie learns more about her family, friends, neighbors, and herself, developing a more mature understanding of what it means to be “lucky.”

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Book Review: Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar

Reviewed by Maria Ramos-Chertok

MY TWO CENTS:   I read this book and couldn’t put it down and then gave it to my 11-year-old son to read and he couldn’t put it down. His review was, “It’s really good,” and while I wholeheartedly agree with him, I’ll elaborate. Ruth Behar does a great job capturing the voice and thoughts of a young girl immigrating to the United States from Cuba. Ruti, the young protagonist, shares her insights about what it is like to be smart, yet treated as if she were “dumb” because she can’t speak English.

As a reader, I found myself joyfully cheering for her to succeed and then devastated when she is injured in an accident, only to find myself re-engaged in rooting for her as she embarks on a journey to regain to her childhood body and the ease of movement she once had. I fell in love with her bohemian neighbor whose child-like appreciation for fun and non-traditional ways of living made me want to copy his interior design tips and decorate my house with piñatas. Behar doesn’t sugar coat the immense challenges of immigrant life, including financial troubles, family tensions and jealousies. Nor does she hide the emotional complexity of love, sacrifice and resentment that Ruti’s mother experiences when she finds herself in the role of 24-hour caretaker for her bed-bound daughter. Behar is also able to capture the volatility of friendships and did a great job bringing me along as Ruti first adores a girlfriend, then feels betrayed by her, and ultimately understands her motivations. The added texture to the story is that Ruti is a Cuban-Jew, which adds another dimension to her arrival in the United States as she encounters friends from different religious (and cultural) backgrounds. As she experiences the beauty of multicultural friendship, she also learns about the boundaries such friendships can have.

In writing with such honesty, Behar allows the reader to examine his/her own assumptions, biases and prejudices and pushes us to consider what is gained by the immigrant experience, but also what is lost in that transition.  This book would have automatic appeal to an immigrant child, but clearly a much wider appeal given that both my son and I are U.S. born and we were immediately captivated by the story Behar has to tell.

TEACHING TIPS:  This book is a wonderful companion to courses related to English, U.S History, Social Studies, Civics/Civic Engagement, Religious Studies, Economics and Health. I’d recommend assigning a few chapters at a time and bringing students along the various stages of Ruti’s arrival in the United States. It is a particularly compelling story to use for any discussion of immigration into the United States and what life is like from the perspective of a young immigrant.  There are rich conversations to be had related to assumptions, biases and prejudices. It is also a great way to teach empathy, as readers get a sense of what it is like to be in need of care taking and to be the care taker as they are learning about life from the perspective of a newcomer.

From an economic standpoint, there are many layers of lessons and conversations that can be facilitated about the role of consumerism and “wanting” something. What are the actual costs of the thing and what are the hidden costs and the opportunity costs? In this regard, I’m thinking, in particular, about the role that the family automobile played in Ruti’s life.

There are also discussions about the impact of making choices:  the choices to drink, how much to drink, whether to drive when drinking and what the consequences of various choices can be.

There are also some very rich conversations to have about friendship:

• How do you know when someone is your friend?
• What’s the difference between a friend and an acquaintance?
• What role do friends play during hard times?
• What happens if something happens to a friend that is hard for you to deal with?

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Lucky Broken Girl , check your local public library, your local bookstore or IndieBound . Also, check out  Goodreads ,  Amazon , and  Barnes & Noble .

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5 comments on “ book review: lucky broken girl by ruth behar ”.

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I definitely want to check this book out, it seems very intriguing. It very slightly reminds me of my childhood, because I came to America at the age of seven and I too, had people treat me so much differently due to the fact that I spoke no English. This book also reminds me a lot of the life story of Frida Khalo, because she too had an accident when she was a teenager and she was told that she was never going to be able to walk. Due to that, Frida also had to learn about loving her life through her art.

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Google Rating

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2017

Pura Belpré Medal Winner

LUCKY BROKEN GIRL

by Ruth Behar ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 11, 2017

A poignant and relevant retelling of a child immigrant’s struggle to recover from an accident and feel at home in America.

In the 1960s, Ruthie Mizrahi, a young Jewish Cuban immigrant to New York City, spends nearly a year observing her family and friends from her bed.

Before the accident, Ruthie’s chief goals are to graduate out of the “dumb class” for remedial students, to convince her parents to buy her go-go boots, and to play hopscotch with other kids in her Queens apartment building. But after Papi’s Oldsmobile is involved in a fatal multicar collision, Ruthie’s leg is severely broken. The doctor opts to immobilize both legs in a body cast that covers Ruthie from chest to toes. Bedridden and lonely, Ruthie knows she’s “lucky” to be alive, but she’s also “broken.” She begins collecting stories from her Jewban grandparents; her fellow young immigrant friends, Belgian Danielle and Indian Ramu; her “flower power” tutor, Joy; and her vibrant Mexican neighbor, Chicho, an artist who teaches her about Frida Kahlo. Ruthie also prays and writes letters to God, Shiva, and Kahlo, asking them for guidance, healing, and forgiveness. A cultural anthropologist and poet, the author based the book on her own childhood experiences, so it’s unsurprising that Ruthie’s story rings true. The language is lyrical and rich, the intersectionality—ethnicity, religion, class, gender—insightful, and the story remarkably engaging, even though it takes place primarily in the island of Ruthie’s bedroom.

Pub Date: April 11, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-54644-0

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING

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THE UNEXPLAINABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF MARS PATEL

From the mars patel series , vol. 1.

by Sheela Chari ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2020

Despite the exciting premise, an unexceptional SF mystery.

Based on the serialized mystery podcast of the same name, this novel follows the adventures of 11-year-old Manu “Mars” Patel and his buddies as they attempt to find Aurora Gershowitz and Jonas Hopkins, two of their missing friends.

When Aurora inexplicably is incommunicado for five days, Mars worries that something is amiss. But when Jonas does not return from an emergency trip to the restroom, Mars and his pals (and fellow delinquents)—the strong JP McGowan, the extremely smart Randall “Toothpick” Lee, and the psychic Caddie Pratchett—realize that they’re the only ones who are willing to admit that children in the Puget Sound area are going missing. As they pursue the mystery, the friends figure out that children have actually been going missing from around the world, and they begin to suspect brilliant billionaire Oliver Pruitt (who is vaguely reminiscent of Elon Musk) is the culprit. Transcripts from Pruitt’s podcast are interspersed throughout the text, offering clues to ardent listener Mars. Better-developed characters and a tighter narrative—especially in the first half of the novel—would have made for a more memorable and gripping read, especially given the intriguing plot points. The cliffhanger ending might result in fans anxiously awaiting what comes next. Some characters’ identities bring diversity to the cast—Mars is Indian; nonbinary JP uses the pronouns they/them.

Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5362-0956-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick

Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020

CHILDREN'S MYSTERY & THRILLER | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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by Sheela Chari

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THE NOTORIOUS SCARLETT AND BROWNE

From the scarlett and browne series , vol. 2.

by Jonathan Stroud ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2023

More rousing, swashbuckling fun.

Pasts, futures, and zombies challenge two young bank robbers in a dystopian future Britain.

Surly quick-draw specialist Scarlett McCain and her game but distractable mind-reading partner, Albert Browne, first met in The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne (2021). They really have their work cut out for them in this sequel, as rescuing two friends from the clutches of brutal crime lords requires hijacking a shipment of high-tech artifacts mined from an ancient and heavily guarded pre-Cataclysm site—even as an agent of the implacable Faith Houses with scarily strong telepathic and telekinetic powers is hot on their trail. Stroud dishes up another gleefully violent, headlong plot replete with cliffhangers, breathtaking feats, and all-too-narrow escapes from both hails of bullets and terrifying creatures ranging from outsized owls and snakes to humans transformed into infectious, cannibalistic Tainted. In developing the outrageous pair of rogues who front this memorably colorful cast of thugs and shady characters, he takes time out to fill in some of Scarlett’s nightmarish childhood, particularly her profound guilt for failing to protect her little brother after the deaths of their parents. Albert likewise gains dimension by learning to face his fears about losing control of his own mental powers in the course of a wildly explosive climax. In the aftermath, a glimmer of hope that Scarlett’s brother might not have been eaten by the Tainted after all sets up future exploits. Like the two leads, the entire cast reads as White.

Pub Date: April 25, 2023

ISBN: 9780593430408

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023

CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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Book Review: Lucky Broken Girl

Lucky Broken Girl is about is girl named Ruthie, who recently moved from Castro's Cuba. When her father decides to buy a car and surprise the family, they get into a terrible accident, testing the car out. Ruthie breaks her leg, and must live in a body cast to mend her leg and to make sure one leg is taller than the other, since she is growing. Ruthie must spend months in the body cast. Along the way, Ruthie makes friends and loses friends, learns how to paint, and continues her life, as much as possible, as to not get behind. This is also a true story. The author changed some parts of the story, but it is based off of true events. I really enjoyed this book. It reminded me that not everyone's life is perfect, and everyone is going through something. Even though the setting of the book was in Ruthie's room most of the story, I had a lot of trouble putting the book down. There are some sad parts but there are also a lot of happy parts. This book is definitely a ten out of ten.

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Lucky Broken Girl

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I enjoyed this book, it's an okay book overall!

I recommend

Weird but good

lucky broken girl was a really weird book but i kinda liked it. it was very interesting and WEIRD

Such a Sweet Story

Just recently finished this book and I was blown away. Ruthie is such a sweet, wholesome character and her view of the world is such a new, fresh perspective. Would definitely recommend.

Amazing book!!!

This book is really nice to be able to step in other people's shoes. I really love it! Definitely recommend!!!

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A Paralympic athlete shares lessons on defying the odds in new book 'Lucky Girl'

Lakshmi Singh

Even after she was adopted by a family in the U.S., Scout Bassett felt lost. Then, she found running. Her new book is called Lucky Girl.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Growing up, Scout Bassett says that she felt like an outsider. Her earliest memories are from an orphanage in China, where she had to figure out how to live with a life-altering disability. After she was adopted by a family in the U.S., she felt lost until she found running. Scout Bassett is a Paralympic athlete, and now she has her own book. Here's NPR's Lakshmi Singh.

LAKSHMI SINGH, BYLINE: Scout Bassett's new book is called "Lucky Girl."

SINGH: But long before she ran in the 2016 Paralympic Games, the celebrated athlete says she never felt all that lucky. It was just the name she got.

SCOUT BASSETT: My Chinese name, Zhu Fuzhi, written in the characters - the Chinese characters - means lucky.

SINGH: Bassett says some people hear lucky and think it's ironic. When she was an infant in Nanjing, China, Bassett says she survived a fire. She also lost her right leg.

BASSETT: I was left on the streets of Nanjing and found at a year-and-a-half old with burns from my waist down and taken to the local government orphanage in Nanjing.

SINGH: You write about some horrific conditions there - forced labor, food shortages, unsanitary conditions. We're fascinated by one story. You found a friend there, another girl, named Hope.

BASSETT: Yes. We gave her the name Hope in the book. That wasn't her actual Chinese name. But we called her that because she really was that for me. And in this orphanage, I was really the only person in the room with a physical disability, where I was immobile and didn't have a prosthetic until a little bit later on. But when I got there, I just got around by using my hands and my one leg to kind of just scoot across the floor. And we had trough-style bathrooms - so not actual toilets. There were several times that I fell. She would see, like, that I'd fall in, and she did her best every time. Like, we had this signal of when I needed to go, and she would just carry me to the bathroom and hold me. And when so much of your dignity is stripped, to be able to have somebody that gives you a little bit of that, for something as basic as using the restroom - she was just such an amazing, like, angel.

SINGH: Bassett remembers waking up one morning to discover that Hope was gone. She doesn't know what happened to her.

Well, you were adopted by a white family from the United States, and you moved to Michigan just before your eighth birthday. Is that correct?

BASSETT: Correct.

SINGH: So you write that you did not fit in there, and you felt homesick for China. Tell us more about that.

BASSETT: For context, when we lived in the orphanage, we didn't have access to the outside world. We couldn't even read. And as a result, if you've only lived in one place your entire life and you've never left the grounds of that place, and then you're just taken away, having all these new experiences that you can't even conceptualize, it's absolutely nauseating. It's traumatic, and it was jarring.

SINGH: Growing up in a small, rural town in northern Michigan, Bassett says she tried to hide her disability. But it was difficult with a conventional prosthesis.

BASSETT: It had a knee and had a foot, and we had a cosmetic cover over it to make it look like a anatomical limb.

SINGH: She was an active kid and she wanted freedom to move around. So she was introduced to something new.

BASSETT: I receive one of those carbon fiber, J-shaped running blades.

SINGH: Then came the moment of truth. Bassett was 14 years old, ready for her very first track race. And then...

BASSETT: I had this panic attack because I'm wearing these little shorts - running shorts - and a yellow sports bra. I realized, oh, wait a minute. I can't cover my running leg.

SINGH: You're essentially exposed.

BASSETT: Exposed. Yes.

SINGH: Totally exposed. And it's either own it (laughter) or...

BASSETT: Yes. Here I am at a track meet and realizing, oh, another thing that's going to be so obvious that I'm not like everybody else. And that's what was terrifying, was having to show the world who I really am and not to be able to hide it.

SINGH: I mean, things changed internally, right? I mean, something shifted.

BASSETT: Yes, because when I put on the leg, I was able to move faster than I ever had in my whole life. And so to wait that long to feel wind as you're moving was just incredible.

SINGH: Bassett fell in love with running. She says it helped to realize she no longer needed to hide her disability.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SINGH: And from this audio capture by The San Diego Union-Tribune, Bassett now seems to embrace the speed in practice and in competition. At the age of 35, the track and field athlete is a world championship medalist and the Americas record holder in the 200 meter in her class.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: Scout Bassett for the USA - born in Nanjing, lives in San Diego.

SINGH: Here she is in the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, wearing a bright-yellow headband and shades. Bassett takes her position on lane four next to several of her competitors, ready to give it all she's got for Team USA.

UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: Away. Caironi out fairly out fairly - Bassett out fast, out wide. Silva began very quickly as well.

SINGH: In the moment, when you're on the starting line, and you're about to take off, what is that like?

BASSETT: It's almost like blacking out because the race happened so quickly, you really don't have a lot of time to form any thoughts. But for me, when I get in the blocks, I always have something before every race that I want to focus on, and I only have that one thought.

SINGH: I have to ask, the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games...

BASSETT: Yes.

SINGH: ...Are just around the corner.

SINGH: What's next for you?

BASSETT: It is a full-court press, all-in for the trials at the end of July. I had a bit of a setback in the winter with personal medical things I had to deal with. And - but now we're good and excited for what's to come.

SINGH: Are you able to talk a little bit about what you encountered in the winter?

BASSETT: Yeah, I had - actually, on my residual limb, I had a tumor removed. Luckily it was benign. But again, lucky girl - that is bad luck to have something like that happen in the year of the Games. But I feel energized. Boy, we went through something major, and we're now running better than we were at this point last year. There is nothing that has happened in this life that is going to be able to derail me or take me out. And I'm really, really grateful for that.

SINGH: Scout Bassett is a professional runner. Her book is called "Lucky Girl." Scout, the best of luck moving forward in everything you do.

BASSETT: Thank you so much.

CHANG: This story is part of a series by Lakshmi Singh called The Sunshine Project. It's only available on the NPR app.

(SOUNDBITE OF LOLA YOUNG SONG, "CONCEITED")

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Lucky Broken Girl Kindle Edition

• Print length 246 pages
• Language English
• Grade level 5 - 6
• Lexile measure 670L
• Publisher Nancy Paulsen Books
• Publication date April 11, 2017
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• ISBN-13 978-0399546440
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Editorial reviews, from school library journal, about the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01IOHQ7Z2
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Nancy Paulsen Books (April 11, 2017)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 11, 2017
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 3911 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 246 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0399546448
• #35 in Children's Hispanic & Latino Stories
• #55 in Children's Disease Books
• #304 in Children's Books on Diseases & Physical Illness

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