Diversity- Every Time a Rainbow Dies

Every Time a Rainbow Dies

Rita Williams-Garcia

 It's an ALA Best Books for Young Adults Top Ten (2002)

Since the death of his mother, sixteen-year-old Thulani has isolated himself on his rooftop, caring only for his pigeons, but one day, from this high vantage point, he witnesses a girl being raped. Thulani yells at the assailants to stop and runs down to intervene. He's met with hostility and fear from the girl, Ysa, who is lying in the alley naked and bleeding. Thulani gives her his shirt and helps her to her nearby apartment. When he returns home, he finds the girl's skirt behind the dumpster. It's a marvelous, colorful creation and he puts it up on his wall, using it to feed his growing obsession with Ysa. He finally finds her, but she is still inaccessible behind a screen of meanness. Thulani is determined and gradually breaks down her defenses. The two bond over their sense of displacement. Through their relationship, both Thulani and Ysa grow and redefine their goals.


In this story award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia celebrates the healing power of love. The characters are very real and overall the reader is very invested in the outcome because the characters are so honestly portrayed. There is no happy-ever-after in this book, which makes it more realistic and valuable for a teenage audience.


I would recommend this book to a mature teenage audience, particularly high school males. The author uses a slightly more distant third-person narrative to tell about Thulani's love for Ysa I think they could relate to him. Sexual encounters, the violence of the rape, and the gentleness with which Thulani makes love to Ysa nearly a year afterwards, are described in some detail. I think that students at least 16 years of age and up are at a good age to read this book.


When I read the jacket of this book I knew it was one that I wanted to read. So I would use it in my book hook-

"He watched her.
 Her skirt billowed.
 Her hair was gathered on top of her head held high. Just as he remembered from those Wednesday on the roof. If she saw him and smiled, if she saw him and smiled.
Ever since the night he found her battered and raped in the alley near his home, Thulani has not been able to think about anything but Ysa.
This is the first time since his mother died that Thulani has given a thought to anything but the rock doves he keeps on the roof of his house in Brooklyn.With his father in Jamaica and his older brother and sister-in-law always wanting to "man him up," the only place he finds solace is near the sky with his birds.
Now that he has seen Ysa, Thulani finally has a reason to come down from the roof. But it's not as easy for him--especially when it seems that Ysa doesn't want him in her world at all."

If this catches their attention I know that they are interested. I would put it on bright mutli-colored paper like the skirts Ysa wears in the story which are vividly described throughout the book.