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    Outburst
    Outburst
    Outburst
    Ebook70 pages49 minutes

    Outburst

    By Patrick Jones

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    After serving time for assault, Jada lands in foster care and a new school to try to turn her life around. She knows she has to control her bursts of anger if she wants to go home to her mom. But the Markhams' house rules are unbearable. And what makes the staff at Rondo Alternative High School any different from the teachers who've written her off before? When tensions flare, Jada is put to the test. Can she find the strength to make the right decisions and regain her mom's trust—before it's too late?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateAug 1, 2014
    ISBN9781467773850
    Outburst
    Author

    Patrick Jones

    Patrick Jones lives in Minneapolis and is the author of many novels including the Support and Defend series. A former librarian, Jones received lifetime achievement awards from the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association.

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    • 5/5
      Jada has trouble controlling her anger, and after she physically attacks her mother she lands in a foster home and in an alternative school. She really just wants to go home, but her team says she must first write a letter apologizing to her mother. With the team's support she begins to understand how to control her anger and believe in herself. Quite well written and good for reluctant readers.

    Book preview

    Outburst - Patrick Jones

    Jada.

    1

    Dear Judge,

    Thank you for placing me here in JDC for a little while so I could learn my lesson. I know I have made some bad choices in the past, but I’ve changed this time. It will be different if you let me go back to my mom and don’t send me to foster care. If I go home, I will get involved in activities such as Girl’s Club and teach young kids how to shoot hoops. But mostly I’ll learn to control my anger when people disrespect me. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I’m done fighting and causing problems at home with my mom. She’s got enough problems being sick without me hurting her too. I’m sorry for breaking the law. I’ll stop shoplifting, smoking weed, and acting out all angry. I’ll do whatever it takes, even if means I got to stop hanging around with my friends who sometimes get me into trouble. So I’m asking you to give me one more chance.

    I know it is hard to deal with kids like me and I understand that I have to follow the rules, so that is why I am writing this letter to you like my PO told me I had to. If you let me go home, then I will write a letter like this to my mom as well to apologize for what I did that caused me to get locked up again. If you just give me one last chance then I promise I’ll control my anger and you won’t see me back in this courtroom ever again. Please, please, please.

    Thank you judge!!!!!

    Jada Robinson

    2

    Jada squeezed the short yellow pencil in her hand. Writing with the tiny tool made her feel like a giant with her thick, tall frame. I mean it this time, she thought. This time will be different. She carefully folded the letter and put it in the envelope. She didn’t need a stamp; she’d read it in person to the judge tomorrow. Jada hated speaking in front of people, especially adults with authority, but she was getting used to it. Just like she got more used to the colorless world of Ramsey County Juvenile Detention Center with every visit.

    Back home, Jada was a color queen: lips, hair, nails, name it. Whatever she could change about herself, she would. Whatever she could shoplift from the Walgreens or Dollar Tree, she’d use and share with Kayla, Tamika, and Tonisha. They felt more like siblings to her than her two half-brothers, both of them full-on trouble. They’d both been in and out of the JDC many times. They’d all probably written the same letter—it wasn’t even the first time Jada had written one—to the same judge.

    Everything was gray in the JDC, aside from the faces, which mostly, like hers, were brown. Except in court, where the judges’ faces were almost always white. And the judges never smiled, which made no sense to Jada, since judges had all the power and control, and the kids had none.

    Jada picked up the Free on the Inside Bible that the chaplain had given her last Sunday. He’d asked if she had a favorite passage. Jada said Matthew 5:39, which her mother always told her she’d better learn to obey: turn the other cheek. Truth was, she’d never read the Bible. Nor had she read any of the books she took from the JDC library. She’d flipped through the hip-hop and sports magazines. Lots of those stars got into trouble when they were kids, Jada thought. All I need is a break like them. All I need is one more chance.

    3

    Do you understand the rules of our home? asked Mr. Markham, the balding foster father. He’d handed Jada the paper list almost the second he took custody of her, upon her release from JDC. She’d stared either at the paper or out the window the entire trip from Ramsey County Family Court to the driveway at the Markhams’ house. Once you’ve read them, then sign at the bottom of the page.

    Jada shifted in the small seat in the un-air-conditioned

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