Get Your Hands On A Patch Of Blue Produced By Elizabeth Kata Available Through Document

first I thought this was a Young Adult novel because the firstperson narrator has a very immature voice.
Then I realized that she is immature in her thinking, or stunted in her mental development, because she has spent her life shut up away from society.
She is blind and never even went to school, She was brought up in an abusive household and was denied even the friendship of the little girl she loved, because her little friend was black.


Thefilm follows the book faithfully up until the end where it takes a sharp turn almost in the opposite direction of the book.
On balance I prefer the film ending but I suppose either way will get the author's purpose across.


A word must be said about the sad state of the little book I got from an interlibrary loan.
A scruffier, meaner looking book couldn't exist, Not only is it a sickly shade of orange, and not only are its pages limp and brown, but it is missing pagesand.
Adding insult to injury, someone has cut out a faded picture from an ancient VHS tape and pasted it crookedly onto the book cover.
A great character study of a young blind girl being raised by her abusive mother and alcoholic grandfather in the's and how one man can make a difference in the life of someone else.


This is the source material of an equally wonderful film, The book is told from the perspective of "Sleena" that's how her drunken guardian's pronounce her name Selina", any/o girl who was blinded by her mother in a domestic abuse incident when she was.
Kata captures Sleena's voice beautifully resigned, tentatively hopeful and sometimes reflective of the ugly bigoted language she hears spewing from her family.


Warning: there is "hate" language used in the story, so if this book is used with young readers it is essential to let them know that the language is reflective of a certain type of character at a specific time and place.
I like the idea of the story of a young black man befriending a blind white girl and liberating her so to speak so she can experience the outside world, but this was just too depressing for me and a bit manipulative.
In addition, I couldn't help thinking about Shelley Winters overthetop performance as the mother, Like the book, I like the film, if only for the scenes with Elizabeth Hartman and Sidney Poitier.
Thank goodness this book is short because I couldn't take too much more of it, I don't know why I enjoy them so much, but this was another one of those "painful to read" books that I enjoy so much! It's so sadly realistic.
People really feel and act that way, This novel is a truly insightful and very moving exploration of racism, The use of a blind protagonist from a 'white trash' background in which random violence, alcoholism, prostitution, dire poverty and an intensely mean spirited sense of personal antagonism prevail was a masterstroke against which to depict the fragile sense of friendship between a young black man and a blind white girl.


Although I read this work and taught it in high school over thirty years ago, I can still vividly recall Selina's fervent desire to go to the park, Gordon's soft spoken and humorous chastisement of Selina's fancies, RoseAnn's drunken laughter at tripping up her blind daughter, Ole Pa's overriding desire to 'get stinkin' i.
e. , drunk and Paul's desperate attempt to get Gordon to see the true depth of the foolhardiness he'd fallen into by befriending Selina.


Originally entitled Be Ready with Bells and Drums the work was made into a very good movie with Sidney Poitier.


i've been obsessed with finding the title of this book for the past few weeks and finally, on amazon under 'advanced search' i found it.
after all that, i decided this book deserves a review,

my background: in high school i read probably some of the most obscure books when most other high schoolers were reading ',' 'animal farm,' and 'lord of the flies' none of which i have read yet.
and among all of obsure books, i thought this book was the most obscureso much so that i couldn't even remember the title.


anyway, now that i've reacquainted myself with 'a patch of blue' i remember this book having a lasting impression on me.
the story is about a blind girl who lives in a verbally abusive household circas, she goes to the park and makes beads as this was her means of making some money to help the family.
she is befriended by this man at the park and this friendship turns into romance, what we come to find out later is that this man is black, and the girl is white and living in the times of the civil rights movement, being in an interration relationship would be frowned upon.
but being blind, she doesn't understand the difference, the main takeaway i had as a teenager reading this was the importance of tolerance, Ill admit I was a little skeptical about reading this book, but once I got into it I literally couldnt put it down! And for those who know me, will know that although I read a lot of books there are very very few that I actually like

What I liked best about this novel is the structure and imagery of the story and the over exaggerated character interactions in various parts actually help create the imagery in our heads.


This book talks about racism in the lates and class structure in that era,

The relationship between the protagonist and the stranger she meets at the park grows as the story goes on and the difference between this relationship to the others is it shows love not lust.
This is one of the reasons I kept on reading, it was real deep attraction in a different form, without physical attraction getting in the way, it talks about friendship growing into love, its the most beautiful thing Ive ever read, the way he teaches her and the way he cares for her from the very beginning, the way she can just feel his presence when hes near.


The only thing that made it a little hard to read is the language though I understand the way the author wanted to portray her characters class status though, which is why I kept reading despite of it.


Its a really good book to pick up over the weekend or over the summer, I really recommend it to everyone.


sitelink wordpress. com/ Manipulative melodrama. Kata piles on the hardships: prostitute mother, a murderer for a father, alcoholic grandfather, abuse, rape at the hands of one of her mother's clients, poverty, isolation, boring work, constant insults, the prospect of being forced into prostitution with men who get off on having sex with a blind girl.
Did I mention she's blind But she's untouched by all the sordid reality of her life, Because she's pure in heart, We know she's pure in heart because she's blind, And blond. And beautiful except for her eyes burned out with acid thrown by her mother who was really aiming at the father who'd just murdered a client in a jealous rage.
But beautiful even with burnedout eyes, Apparently the acid missed the rest of her face, And if she's blind and blond and beautiful, she's got to be pure, And so she says purehearted things like this: ""After my prayer I stopped worrying and fell asleep, " She learned about God by listening to the radio she's just naturally open to God because the pure at heart always are.
And the big revelation about Gordon is telegraphed so unrelentingly that you'd have to be as stupid as the prostitute mother not to see it coming almost as soon as the character shows up.
A blind young woman momentarily escapes the sordid world of her prostitute mother when a young Black befriends her in the park.
and/stars

Sleena or Selina remembers the color Blue from the sky which she gazed at for hours on end up until the event which took colors from her life.
She knows Red too. It is the color of the man's blood the man slashed by her father, Harry's knife when he caught him with her mother, RoseAnn.
The only other color Sleena knows is Black, which is the color of her world now, blinded as she was left when RoseAnn attempted to throw acid at Harry and missed.
Instead, the acid left her daughter blind atyearsold, her eyes so damaged she is unable even to cry.
Sleena sees Black all day, every day and she hates Black, It is easier to hate a color than the mother she has to live with or the father away

somewhere in prison for murder.


This is the story of one of the most dysfunctional families you can imagine for its time period, the's.
Even today, it would be hard to imagine a worse environment for a child to grow up in.


I read this back inand can easily imagine the actor, Sidney Poitier as Gordon, the idealistic young man who wants to rescue Sleena/Selina from her hideous environment.
The reader knows it is a tragedy, with no possibility of a truly happy ending, yet for the brief gasp of a moment, the shared hopefulness between Gordon and Sleena is still bittersweet.
And yet we read on waiting and wondering, . . only where, when and how Selina will discover that her knight in shining armor is the one color she despises, the only color she cannot escape due to her blindness.


Not a Great Book, but a memorable one, Rating: ./

I loved this book quite profoundly, . . until the ending, which was depressing,

Having seen the movie first, I made comparisons, The movie adaptation is quite faithful to the book, except in the ending, which is a little more hopeful.
Personally, while I can see how the ending does express a moral message as well, the movie accomplished the same feat with a much less heartbreaking ending.


If not for that minor detail, I would have given the book a full/stars, and perhaps even put it on my favourites list.
This just goes to show you how an ending can ruin a book,

In this case, not all the way, but still enough to keep it from being among the books I highly regard the most.


Recommended to all probably, I'd say, especially as a study in culture, history, and racism, If any book should be sold without a cover image and blurb, it's this one, I initially read it back in high school, ignored the blurb on the advice of the teacher, and was surprised by the twist ending.
The twist ending is the best part of the book, I feel like it's crucial to the story if the reader is as blind as Selina, the main character.
Without being surprised by the end, the book is still interesting, but very depressing, That's all I'll say about it, in hopes you haven't yet read the book but will now pick it up without seeking out any other reviews.
"Sleena, you blind tomato!" Who could ever forget Selena's evil mother and feckless grandfather drunk and berating her Though now I can't remember if she was actually the mother or aunt.
This is a remarkable story of a young blind woman blinded in a horrible accident kept sheltered by her ignorant, and yes, evil, guardians.
Selena, finally allowed by her keepers to be escorted to a park to do bead work her occupationmeets a young black doctor.
When he figures out the reality of Selena's situation, he becomes determined to save her, This takes place in the early's, and all that that implies regarding racism and perception, An excruciating but wonderful book, and an even better movie, A wonderful love story. Selena, a blind girl grows up in what must be one of the most dysfunctional family there ever was.
She is abused and brutalized by her mother, She grows up and finds love in Gordon, an up and coming young doctor, In this case, love is blind, She doesn't know that Gordon is black, He visits her in the park where she is dropped off by her drunken grandfather every day to string beads for a kindly merchant/neighbor to sell.
Gordon takes her to his apartment and introduces her to his brother, also a successful young black man.
Gordon has plans for Selena to seek shelter from her wreck of a family and to acquire an education.
This never comes to pass, There is no happy ending in the book, unlike the namesake movie, This is a littleread classic story in the vein of "Strange Fruit" by Lillian Smith, Perhaps that is why it seems to so little known, It reveals a truth about us as a nation, that even if love is blind, outsiders are not and can ruin the dreams and happiness of an innocent couple.
Read it. It's short and endearing. ZABIJE SIE At first glace, I hated this book, It did not hold my interest at all, and I did not appreciate the way my freshman english teacher shoved it down my throat.
Every word was digested by force, I held no pity, nor passion for Selena or Gordon, The mother and the aunt bored me, And, I couldn't care less about Oh Mr, Faber. It bothered me quite a bit that many of my fellow classmates couldn't read aloud as fast as I, because I just wanted to finish the book, complete the review, pass the test and move on to something else.
Something exciting, something captivating, something bigger than a patch and a different color than blue,

For many years I cursed the day Mrs, Howie slapped that book down on my desk and told me to start reading, I grumbled, hemmed and hawed, scoffed and rolled my eyes, But, I read it. And, for what's more

I grew up, A lot of that proclaimed hatred and hubbubing was me being childish and spiteful, throwing a fit because I didn't want to read what I was told.
I find myself thinking about this book from time to time, about how the world has come a long way since the life and times of Gordon, Selena and Pearl.
About how different their lives would be if they met in today's society, if they'd had more than a patch to grow on.


All in all, this is by far not my favorite book, but one that will forever keep me reflecting on life and the connections that make and break us, how the world sees us, and most importantly, how we see ourselves.


Thanks, Mrs. Howie. .