I am absolutely going INSANE from trying to find this book. I don’t remember the title, the names of any characters, the main plot, and i barely remember the cover. It might even be two books that my memory smashed into one. Here’s what I remember:
The main character is a girl with purple hair. She steals stuff, I think. Her parents somehow leave the picture (maybe) and she’s sent to live with some rich family member in an old, fancy building that used to be an insane asylum. She isn’t allowed in certain areas of the place by whomever because of some stuff I don’t remember. She (maybe?) sees an image of, or maybe hears a story about, a child with a yellow blanket, then finds out the yellow blanket was something they used to send dead patients down chutes in when the building was still an asylum. There’s some boy, maybe mentions of an ocean or lake nearby, and I think the girl might be a kleptomaniac. She finds comfort in hiding in tight places like vents and small secret spots, where I think she at one point hides from cops who come to take her from her old house to the asylum place. The cover has some kind of nature detailing, like maybe leaves, or vines, or a flower, and the girl with purple hair is shown with shadows on her face. I think I got this book from a scholastic bookfair in like idk 2013 or a bit earlier. I think either I compared it to the secret garden, or a review on the cover did. Some of this might be completely false but that’s what I remember. Please someone help me lmao
Last Friday my student has his first big bump of the year--which is amazing! That's amazing for him!--but it was a big bump. He is a stellar kid and he handled it so well and I am really proud of him for the whole debacle.
*sigh*
Bookfairs are SUPERDOG hard for us. Every year we have some sort of bump around the Scholastic Bookfair. 1st Grade, he broke into his brother's piggy bank and stole money to buy a book. 2nd grade, we stole a book (obviously, it was returned after a whole tantrum and grievance session) and now... 3rd Grade...we stole a book again.
To his credit, he was a lot slyer than last year--he claimed to be going to the Media Center with a friend (whom, by the way, he convinced to keep quiet), which is where the Bookfair was and returned with a book--which is normal right? Media Center = books!--and slid that sucker into his book bin.
However, as I strolled by, I looked in his book bin and noticed a BRAND-SPANKING-NEW Captain Underpants #6 Full Color, the book he was scouring the Media Center for two days ago! I go "WOW! Where did you get that??" and he replies "Oh, mom and I went to the bookfair this morning and she bought it for me!"
Now, I knew this was a lie for three reasons:
1) Mom dropped them off in the morning, which she does not usually do, and was not in the school that morning.
2) The bookfair was not open that morning--it was opening during school for kids who had deposited money and after school, but not before.
3) Mom had told me they probably weren't going to the book fair because they have six kids and buying new books for six kids is a lot of money and Scholastic up-prices for book fairs.
So, to confirm my suspicions, I text his mom and ask "Did you guys get to go to the bookfair this morning?" and her reply was " NOPE, and he knows that! NO BOOKFAIR! WE ARE SKIPPING IT!"
Yep. Confirmed. *sigh* I tell myself, "this is going to go so well."
Thus, I go up to my student and I simply hold up my phone, showing him the text. I said "read what mom said" and after he does, he crumbles. His shoulders just droop and his face falls. I softly and calmly ask "Do you know why I texted her?" and he quietly nodded and said, "Because you knew I was lying."
So began the rest of my day where the teacher and myself had to give him a lecture, I continued texting his mom (whose reply began with "WTF" and then "OMG we have books, why does he feel we have to steal books?" to "I goddamn hate the goddamn bookfair.")
Something that is really awesome about my kid is that he is actually a really good kid--I mean, the only thing he's actually stolen is books!--and he feels actually guilty for his actions. I asked him why he stole it and he said, "I wanted it so bad and I knew mom wouldn't buy it for me, and I didn't know where else I could read it! It's not at the library, it's not in the teacher's library, I don't have it anywhere!"
Then we explained how stealing is wrong, even if we want something super bad. I explained how I work at the Bookstore and there are so many things that I want soooo bad but I don't have money to buy. But, if I stole from the Bookstore, I wouldn't be able to work there anymore.
Then, the big whammy came: mom came to pick him up. Whenever my student has a big bump (big mad, speed bump, whichever terminology you want to use) he goes home. Going home is not a fun time for this family- they do chores, run errands with mom, cook, etc. They do not just chill and play video games, like many of the other kids in the EBD program--they are not PUNISHED like, afraid of their parents, but they are not rewarded for going home. My student would rather be at school, hands down.
But, when you have to tell my student that mom is picking him up, he SCREAMS. He melts down, and may even need another CPI hold if you've done one already. To him, going home means he's fucked up bad and he's going to have to atone for it. Then mom arrives, he calms again (because she's not the Big Bad Wolf) and ends up walking out just fine.
...
Overall, I was really disappointed that he didn't learn from it last year but proud that his only shoplifting experience is with books because he wants to read them. I mean, he has books! (I also PCA at their house, I've seen the books, this is not just hearsay!) He gets books, he gets toys, the boy is not deprived. But he comes from a deprived background and his bio parents taught him that you can most certainly take what you want from people. It has been something that I have worked actively against the three years I've worked with him.
