That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row (Oprahs Book Club 2.0)

Moving and disturbing insight to institutional challenges for at risk youth.

Amazing and powerful book. Puts in perspective how lots of people take what they have for granted

Great Book! Read it for capital punishment & I enjoyed it!

It can quick I can’t wait to read it. The first two chapters I read online had me hooked

This was a hard book to read. But told a great lesson. Thanks for sharing your story. May god bless you….

It took me two days to read this book. The reason is that The author’s childhood was quite painful to read. The vivid descriptions were graphic, gut wrenching and profoundly sad. The book is also enlightening and offers hope for redemption primarily within and for oneself. I would recommend this book .

I love this book. It is the true story of this man’s life on death row as of now 28 years on death row for a wrongful conviction. The book isawesome! It tells a common story of young kids who are lost in between the cracks and Jarvis is not a killer.

The author moves us to tears and makes us question the decisions of our leaders. Why do we go to war? What are we accomplishing? What are we doing to our soldiers? Is it worth it? Mr. Masters uses language beautifully and paints a vivid picture of what it was like to go to Iraq and what it was like to come home. This book made a profound affect on me and I will always remember this story. Thank you to the author for writing this and hopefully he will continue to write such amazing stories.

I had already read Jarvis Jay Masters other book, FINDING FREEDOM, WRITINGS FROM DEATH ROW.That is what prompted me to buy this one.Here is a man , low and violent , who has become who he really is. He has developed spiritually and grown, in what is perhaps the most horrible enviroment on earth, in to a compassionate human able to manage his own pain and rage through meditation.He has become truely human despite never being treated like one.AN amazing man, an excellent writer with only a pen refil alowed him. Cramed in his cell and listening to the sounds of the hell he lives in he has become a man among men.We have , already, the model of Nelson Manela …here is another. He may never be free but we can read how it all came to be and what he has now become.Totally moving and inspiring.Thank

(That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row) By Jarvis Jay Masters (Author) Paperback on (Oct , 2010)

 you Jarvis for what you have given us.We really need to treat our unwanted, uncared for children better. We, the society , need to grow and give these children some love. More than anything we need to refornm the prison system.How very enlightening to know that prison is the only place they feel safe with their rage.

Very powerful story, it shows how much the system continues to fail our youth, to the extreme, ending with a Death sentence for a innocent man…

This book by Jarvis Jay Masters is painfully compelling and inspiring to read. Hard to stop reading it, hard to continue. There were a few sections so graphically disturbing I slammed the book closed, vowing not to read further, only to open it again a half hour later to read on, eager to know more about his experience. This book was an education about so many important issues like childhood trauma, abandonment, drug addiction, the foster care system, the prison system, the determination to write about and remember the past and the practice of Buddhism. Also, if it’s possible to meditate in prison, it’s possible anywhere. Thank you so much.

I found this book to be completely honest and without a hint of self pity· It fills me with sorrow to know that some children are born into horrible situations and are left to fend for themselves· Many of them end up in the prison system but not many are able to experience the spiritual awakening or truth of who they were originally born to be within themselves like Mr Masters has done· I APPLAUD his desire to want to help another child· I pray that another troubled youth will pick up this book and read it

This is a remarkable story of a transformation of a man who’s personal life journey was filled with heartache and heartbreak. We will never know if this transformation would have happened if Jarvis had never gone to prison. However, all too often young people die before it does. This is a classic tale of what happens when the system fails our young people. A classic and all too common story of when anger, fear and pain goes unrecognized and thus untreated. A must read for all especially those who work with offenders. Everybody is not guilty, everybody is not innocent, but EVERYBODY has a story.

This is an outstanding and well written book.We get an insiders look at what it takes to become a gang member in LA. I felt really sad for the plight of Jarvis during the beginning of the book but my feelings changed as he matured and did dangerous things.I highly recommend this book and think that regardless of the violence, it is very much worth the read.I recommend.

10/10 life changing

Amazing story of his struggles through the foster care system and the people who let him down

As various states in our country reconsider what to do with the death penalty, this book takes our thoughts out of the abstract to the concrete experience of a long-time inmate on Death Row. Good to stretch the mind and involve the heart.

As an educator for social justice, I thought I knew a lot about kids, schools, and the struggles of getting a quality education in an unjust system. But Jarvis Jay Masters’ unflinching look at his own life and journey through the ‘hell realms’ of our society opened my eyes in a profound way to realities I had no idea about – and which countless others, particularly many black male youth, continue to experience. That he could have achieved the self-knowledge and inner peace having lived through all he describes – and be able to express it so lucidly in this book – is a blessing to us all.

Fast read book. Some of the incidents that happened to Jay are so heart wrenching.

What inspired me to read this book? To put it on hold for many weeks and then today to be reading just as dawn began to break? The amazing clarity of the author’s ability to remember and describe how his life unfolded into the Buddhist path. The memories of the little boy in foster care. The surges of anger washing over him, propelling him again and again into wrong choices. So many people are being executed these days and all that is reported in the announcements is the crime that justifies their death. The death penalty is wrong, and this author’s book makes the case fluently and fervently. Thank you, Mr. Masters.

Masters gives us a clear depiction of the traumas and abuse that impact innocent young lives and his choice to now find accountability and peace from within.

I would not have known about Jarvis if it weren’t for Pema Chodron’s stories about him. I because intrigued about Jarvis and since my own son is in prison, mainly because of bad decisions related to being a heroin addict, I thought he would like it too. For me personally, I identified with being left alone with my siblings to raise our selves, not because my Mom was an addict, well not at the time, mainly because she was a hippy in the 60’s and we lived everywhere and nowhere. However, my family was not into crime, but they could have easily gone there and so could I. I was deeply touched by the pain surrounding his upbringing and seeking approval or just to matter to his mother. I believe anyone can change their lives with a good support system and a higher power, what or whomever that is. Free Jarvis, he’s suffered enough!

I haven’t ever written a book review. Its one of the best book ever written. He is so inspiring with his practice. It’s definitely a must read

I couldn’t put this book down – it’s very engaging and well-written. Jarvis has a powerful way of simultaneously bringing the reader in to both his childhood perspective of events as they’re happening, as well as his mature adult perspective. As a survivor of a very different kind of childhood abuse I could relate to his reflection that as small children we can’t see the soup we swim in because it just is our “normal.” I could also relate to his experience of being helplessly trapped by expertly manipulative adults (his 2nd foster home), with no chance of being believed.Through his writing I could feel the pull of the downward spiral he was in, and the dilemma between the need to feel a sense of belonging (which is a survival need), and the desire to begin anew. Make no mistake, in this book Jarvis owns full responsibility for the many things he is not innocent of. He does not dodge responsibility, nor does he seek to blame. What he does is provide a thoughtful window into an incredibly difficult childhood, the far-reaching impact of developmental trauma, coping mechanisms, and an indomitable human spirit.Even with the poignant tales of corrupt systems that are supposed to help and protect, but instead contribute to harm and injustice, I still upon finishing the book, eagerly typed freejarvis.org into my browser and expected to see a release date. Sadly that is not what I found. What I found instead was evidence of more of what is described in the book: institutional ineptitude and the kind of injustice that brings tears to my eyes.

I suffered some abuses growing up but nothing like those suffered by Jarvis Masters. Some friends were arrested for minor drug offenses but I managed to escape that. Reading this memoir makes it very clear that I have no excuse to complain or blame others when my life isn’t perfect, and that only by taking stock of my own mind and actions will I live a whole life.

This book has brought me so much wisdom, connection and joy. Jarvis’ past and his mindful reflection upon it has been healing for me.I could see so clearly how futile the current correctional system is in the us, how it keeps punishing those the most that need help the most. And how at age 19 Jarvis was no more than a boy thrown left and right by his past trauma, abusive upbringing which turned into his implicit body memories that made him live out the worst over and over again to end up in a prison just like his earliest childhood home must have felt. It’s all laid out so clearly and evidently leading to the outcome it took without really being able to blame anyone, neither him, his abusive mother and family, nor the white oppressors that set up the system in the first place.If we could all see clearly as Jarvis did that at the heart we just want to matter, to be connected and live in peace, we can change many things. I hope Jarvis can walk as a free man soon and I’m inspired to do what i can to contribute to less harm and more freedom in the world and hope to get a chance to meet Jarvis one day!

I must admit, when I picked up this book off the shelf at our local library, I almost put it back. I was worried that a memoir by an “innocent man on death row” would be self-pittying or full of pages trying to sell me on how he was wronged. I’m glad I gave it a chance. The book is wonderfully written, an honest accounting of life events that seem to have shuttled Mr. Masters into the jaws of San Quentin. Though his childhood is full of more horrors than most of us can (thankfully) imagine, the stories are not told with bitterness or anger, but with a peaceful, straightforward description that makes me want to pass this book on and take action for other children that are being raised without the compassion and nuturing that we all deserve. If you are considering this book, pick it up, read a few pages. You won’t be able to put it back.

Beautiful, insightful and heartbreaking

Tough subject but beautifully written. Jarvis was failed first by the foster care system, then the juvenile detention system, and finally by the criminal justice system. Oh how different his life could have been if he had been raised by the initial foster parents who loved and cared for him the way all children deserve. Jarvis has found spirituality and a level of peace in prison. He has done his time, he has been rehabilitated – he deserves to be free.

I just began reading this book and I cannot put it down. It’s a real eye opener. I have been brought to tears, but have also laughed.

Great book. Thanks

Sad but good

Bought this as chosen by my Book Club. Quality and printing of the book is good. Emotional book based oreal life incidents. Sad turn of events for the character and its all true!!

So heartbreaking. This memoir is so beautifully written. I felt drawn in to the author’s world as he essentially just told his story, no hold barred, as he recalls it. I definitely recommend this book to everyone.

A prequel to his book, FINDING FREEDOM. Definitely a nonfiction story worth reading about one young man’s catastrophic cascade of poor choices.

In this unblinking memoir of his growing up, Jarvis Jay Masters narrates love and terror just as they emerge, without ever presuming that one undoes the other. At times it’s painful reading indeed, the kind where you peek at some pages through splayed fingers, but Jarvis’s voice is never bitter, and brave enought to be equally open to all the elements of his own history.This book offers about the most probing and comprehensive condemnation of a foster care and juvenile detention system gone mad that I’ve encountered, rendered only the stronger because he writes with such receptivity. And so many memoirs that include parental neglect seem to force the reader into “siding with the state,” by leveling a total judgment against the “bad” families of origin. In That Bird Has My Wings, we never lose sight of familial love or the resources that came with that love. Even as we see the devastations caused by violence, addiction and poverty, we recognize for what they are the deeper cuts of rupture, loss and institutionalization.I was rooting so hard for young Jarvis, even though the reader’s told from the first page that the tale is leading to San Quentin. Teenaged Jarvis’s ultimate move toward crime has its own tragic logic, and we mourn as we sense the paradox: his criminalization feels inevitable, and yet we know that it didn’t have to be that way.I think that, just like Jarvis’s SUPERB first book, Finding Freedom, this book belongs on high school and college syllabi and really ought to get a wide readership. Buddhism is central to each text, both explicitly and implicitly, in ways that prompt amazing classroom discussions, but that, to me anyhow, never feel like I am being proselytized as a reader. Instead, Jarvis introduces us to the feel, sometimes fumbling and sometimes exquisite, of his path, and what it’s like to be a Buddhist in San Quentin.

ok

wouldn’t say I “love” it. That word does not fit the content. It was an incredible experience to read it. I have recommended it to many others. Gives great and very real overview of how a life can be shaped by environment.

A true story of a man who has overcome grave injustices. Read it!

In 1981 when 19 year old Jarvis entered San Quentin State Prison in California some of my views were naive and myopic. I erroneously believed that the foster care systems in California and our country were effectively operational and beneficial to all. Not too many years later, I learned the sad truth.There are many ways to think about THAT BIRD HAS MY WINGS, Jarvis Masters’ second book. First, don’t expect to read about an angry, bitter and resentful man. Instead, the author talks to us without self-pity and blame – he takes responsibility for his actions. Jarvis takes his readers with him on a courageous journey of self-discovery.I must agree that this book is a “testament to the human spirit”. It is most definitely an inspirational account of one person’s resiliency and determination. The author was not afforded the luxury of a computer or even a pen or pencil. He was required to use only the fillers from ballpoint pens. Can you imagine how many pen fillers he used and how physically uncomfortable this must have been for him? Because of Jarvis’ perserverance, we are confronted with the disturbing realization of what happens to many children who are removed from their homes. How can your heart not hurt when you hear the innocent words of young Jarvis morph into that of a troubled adolescent and young adult – a person who craved only love and acceptance, first from his family and then from his peers? I cried when Jarvis was removed from his first foster home, the first place where he received unconditional love, respect and positive regard. Throughout the book I wondered what his path might have looked like if he stayed with this family. For me, Jarvis’ honest account of his experiences was often difficult and frustrating to read. The foster care system that was designed to protect him did just the opposite. It failed him and continues to fail others like him in so many obvious ways. The exposes and documentaries continue to tell us what’s wrong with the foster care system. When will there be the right mix of money and people to effect positive change for our youth?Who is the audience for this well-written book? I believe THAT BIRD HAS MY WINGS should be required reading for those who are in positions to orchestrate positive change. This includes politicians, policy makers and administrators. I strongly encourage high school teachers to include this book in their curriculum. I also recommend this book for anyone who has an opportunity to influence a child’s life and future. All of us can better the life of at least one child. Sometimes this responsibility cannot be left solely to parents or other relatives, teachers, health care professionals, coaches, etc. What could happen if many more of us volunteered a small amount of our time to tutor or mentor a child, or to be a Big Brother or Big Sister?Thanks to his spiritual practice, and supportive and loving people, Jarvis Jay Masters successfully turned his life around. He seems at peace. I can imagine a day when he is out in the community, directly working to improve the future of our impressionable youth. When that day comes, he will be far, far away from his current residence at San Quentin.

I enjoyed this book tremendously, I found it inspiring, honest, and clear. Having spent most of my adolescence in the CYA system and now in my sixties brought back many memories and gratitude for my meditation practice. Thank you Jarvis

This was a very good book. After reading about his childhood I can see why he ended up in prison so many times. I am so sorry he ended up on death row.

Jarvis knew love and he knew violence. At times they looked the same. Those who prayed for him saved him from despair and taught him to fly!

This has book has to be read by any young juvenile delinquent. They will relate and maybe learn something it took Masters almost a half a lifetime to see. It was well written and honest. No pretense and no discussion of innocence or guilt. The subheading should actually not be on the front page of the book as Masters never presents any bias just forthrightness.

Quick and captivating read