Baby Girl

March 1, 2007
Young, angry, and pregnant, Sheree has run away. In a lengthy letter, she tells her mother why she left. The litany is long: her mother's smoking and sexual encounters with men, her father's absorption with his young son and wife, her friend Ange's abortion, and Damon, the 25-year-old drug dealer who has stolen her heart and self-respect. Even Austin, her high-school buddy who refuses to show romantic interest in her, gets a mention. Then Sheree's mother responds with a letter of her own, begging her daughter to return, start over, and raise her child at home. Sheree's story is an unfortunate, far-too-typical scenario of children raising children, absent fathers, and women using their bodies to gain money and power. The author worked in a homeless shelter for women, and in this powerful novel, the voices and situations ring with authenticity, and the ending is grim but honest.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)