Somebody's Someone

April 14, 2003
This straightforward, sincere story of a neglected child who tries to fulfill her wish—to be a "wanted and special child"—opens when Louise is 11. She's lived in a chaotic, violent foster home for as long as she can remember. After a brutal beating with a garden hose, she runs away to her well-meaning but ineffectual grandmother. From there, she pinballs from one relative or foster parent to another, all of whom treat her with indifference if not abuse. She ends up, at 13, at an Illinois shelter whose sheer normality (i.e., no beatings, and friendly people who teach her to swim and do macramé) allows her finally to relax a little. Unfortunately, it's a temporary situation, and Louise's anxiety over leaving a safe place makes her behave badly. The author, who's now a hair stylist and owns two Bay Area salons, brilliantly portrays how what seems like "in-cur-ridge-abul" to adults feels like simple self-defense to a child scarred by maltreatment. When one shelter worker finally gives her unequivocal love, it turns her life around. If this were fiction, it might seem overly maudlin; its poignancy lies in being a true story. The narrator's vernacular voice ("When I did ask somebody about the... reason my mama left... everybody got deaf and dumb all a sudden....") can sometimes make for bumpy reading. But this rare look into the inner world of an unwanted child will enlighten readers concerned with the fate of at-risk children. Agent, Arielle Eckstut. (June 12)Forecast:This is part one of Louise's memoir. The author sometimes speaks at national foster care and social workers' conventions, and if she continues to do so and plugging her book, it should sell nicely. Ads will run in
Essence.

May 1, 2003
This coming-of-age story is an unnerving tale of childhood abuse and neglect. Covering her early childhood through young adult years, Louise reveals the Dickensian details of moving from an informal foster care home, where she was badly beaten, to short stays with parents who neglected and finally abandoned her. After years of harrowing abuse, this gifted but troubled young girl became a ward of the state of California. Along the way, kindness appeared in the guise of an adult who befriended her on a bus and a shelter attendant. From such scraps of support and a natural desire to improve relationships with significant but pathetic characters from her past, the author begins to build her own identity and self-esteem. More than one person's story, this book illustrates how too many caretakers and social service agencies fail vulnerable children. Though it contains heavy doses of black English and reconstructed dialog, the narrative flows and is believable and involving. Recommended as a supplementary purchase for public libraries that own Antwone Fisher's Finding Fish, a stronger and more hope-filled work. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/03.]-Antoinette Brinkman, M.L.S., Evansville, IN

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2003
It's not, unfortunately, an unusual story: Regina Louise was poor, black, illegitimate, and abandoned by her mother to the care of an elderly woman, Big Mama, more concerned with getting to heaven than the health and welfare of her charge. Writing in the idiomatic voice of her childhood self, the author brings her fear, pain, stubbornness, and intelligence up close as she describes her struggles to find someone to love who will love her back. After a brutal beating at the hands of Big Mama's grown foster child, Regina is shuffled from one home to another, angry, uncooperative, vulnerable, finding solace first in fantasies that her mother will rescue her, then in the dream that she will be taken in by a family like those she sees on television. It's supremely ironic that the woman who truly loves her happens to be white and is barred from fostering her. This is a harsh, often brutal, but always compelling memoir, and its very existence is proof of the author's personal triumph in the face of enormous odds.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)