You Ruined It

by Anastasia Higginbotham, Anastasia Higginbotham (Illustrator)

Overview

ONE OF SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL's BEST BOOKS OF 2022

In You Ruined It, Anastasia Higginbotham, acclaimed author of Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, sheds light on the confusion and pain that many children feel in the aftermath of incest and sexual assault.

When 11-year-old Dawn discloses that a favorite cousin sexually assaulted her, it's hard to tell what hurts more: the betrayal or the fall-out. After all, everyone always says to tell someone, but does this mean she'll never get to hang out with him again? What if he goes to jail? 

And the biggest question of all: How will she know if she can trust someone again?

You Ruined It is a testament to a child's experience of a confusing betrayal, her broken heart, and the loved ones who help her piece it back together.

I wish I had this magical brave book when I was young and being abused. So beautifully rendered and carefully told. May it inspire anyone caught in childhood sexual abuse to tell their story and get free. —V (formerly EVE ENSLER), award-winning playwright and author of bestsellers The Vagina Monologues and The Apology

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948340304
Publisher:	DOTTIR PR
Publication date:	04/05/2022
Series:	Ordinary Terrible Things Series
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

ANASTASIA HIGGINBOTHAM is the author and illustrator of Divorce Is the Worst, Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, Death Is Stupid, and Tell Me About Sex, Grandma—all part of the Ordinary Terrible Things series. She lives in Brooklyn.

Editorial Reviews

A heartbreaking but realistic account of a child’s life soon after a sexual assault by a trusted family member. The story is seamlessly woven into a series of journal entries and scrapbook pages, and the author thoughtfully examines the complicated emotions children may feel after going through such trauma. Filled with curriculum connections to poetry and life science, as well as year-round activities, this book has plenty to offer students and teachers. —SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

Unlike many other books dealing with difficult, traumatic subjects, Higginbotham’s work offers no advice, punishment, or easy answers. Instead, You Ruined It is a book about care—and the way that care may invite healing rather than demand it. —BITCH magazine

[A] searing, sensitive portrayal of sexual assault...The focus on the aftermath allows Higginbotham to examine the complicated feelings Dawn has toward her abuser, as well as the layers of trauma for both her and her family members. The collage artwork...brings a sense of believable messiness and compassionate intimacy to Dawn’s first-person narration. A wealth of additional front and back matter guides readers with questions, resources, and support; while obviously useful in a therapeutic setting, this could also offer insight to kids with friends who have been assaulted.—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

I wish I had this magical brave book when I was young and being abused. So beautifully rendered and carefully told. May it inspire anyone caught in childhood sexual abuse to tell their story and get free. —V (formerly EVE ENSLER), award-winning playwright and author of bestsellers The Vagina Monologues and The Apology

You Ruined It is a springboard for so many conversations that can add to the primary as well as the secondary prevention perspective as these children work hard to pick up the pieces. Kudos for tackling this. —INGRID WALKER-DESCARTES, child abuse pediatrician

You Ruined It left me speechless. Written from the inside out, it perfectly addresses one of the most complex (and all too common) issues in childhood trauma with bravery and exquisite sensitivity. As a therapist, I bow to Higginbotham's artistry and her deep understanding of incest and the confusion that ensues when a beloved family member violates your body and your trust. I know this book will help children feel understood and less alone—and adults who have had this kind of trauma will experience profound healing from reading it as well. —LISA SPIEGEL, co-founder of Soho Parenting

As a writer, a teacher and a mother, I’m grateful to Anastasia for taking the lives of kids seriously. As with all her extraordinary books, Anastasia creates a rare, invaluable space for the complex experiences and feelings of childhood. Dawn’s pain and sadness are balanced so tenderly with love and belief; she is both broken and brave; an unlikely superhero and also an intensely confused kid. A gift to caregivers and children alike to know her story and hear her voice....Unlike anything I have ever read. —KATIE CAPPIELLO, author of Slut: The Play and Now That We're Men

From the Publisher

2022-04-27
Dawn processes the consequences of telling her mother and her sibling about what her older cousin did to her.

Her mother is reluctant to tell relatives, including Dawn’s grandmother and absent father, about the rape, but she and Dawn’s sibling, Billie, support her, and the family attends self-defense lessons. Billie feels greater anger and need for revenge than Dawn, who misses bygone days outdoors with her 22-year-old cousin. Handwritten text on lined paper evokes the intimate feeling of a diary. The collage art conveys Dawn’s varying emotional state as she grapples with the aftermath of the assault. Words and images are placed next to or inside circular shapes produced by spirographs to indicate feelings and experiences she asserts or rejects, demonstrating a therapeutic art exercise she learns about later in the story (“what i want goes inside the circle. what i don’t want stays out”). Crossed-out text, including raped and we, reflects her efforts to reckon with what happened and who was responsible. Dawn is gentle on herself and, by extension, on readers who may have been in similar situations. Her acts of self-care, from reclaiming old favorite settings to creating art, demonstrate practical means of healing. Dawn and her family are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

This empowering lesson about speaking up and trusting oneself in the wake of trauma deserves to be read widely. (questions for reflection; author’s notes about incest, self-defense, and spirographs; resources for further learning) (Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews