Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

Problems?
Ideas?
Suggestions?
Please email BudNotBuddy@aol.com

Thank You!

" 'All I want now is to go home, curl up in my bed, and sleep for two days.'
"Fred turns away from me.
" 'There'll be no sleep for you. There's ten pounds of I need my daddy, a pissed-off [grand]mother, and a disappointed neighbor waiting at home. You ready to deal?' "

What is it like when a child has a child? After reading Angela Johnson's THE FIRST PART LAST, I have finally been able to feel what that is like.

First comes the news:

"We start walking down Columbus and I don't hear the people or cars, and it's rush hour. Everything is a blur, and the only thing I see is my feet in hiking boots and K-Boy in tennis shoes.
"K-Boy says, 'Shit,' again.
" 'Yeah,' I say. That's pretty much where I'm at.
"K-Boy brushes against my shoulder trying to dodge two kids on rollerblades.
" 'Nia okay? 'Cause I know she is seriously into the books...'
" ' She's out of it. Last time I talked to her all she could do is get out a few words. Mostly she just cries.'
" 'I feel you, man. I mean I wouldn't want to be ya, but I feel you.'
" 'Hell, I don't want to be me either.' "

Bobby Morris, a young artist, is in the midst of celebrating his sixteenth birthday with his buddies when his girl, Nia, informs him that he is to be a father. We don't learn until the latter part of the book why Bobby ends up raising that baby, a daughter named Feather, without Nia's assistance, but that is the hand he is dealt.

Both Bobby and Nia have parents who have taught them better. While Bobby is permitted to continue living at his mom's with Feather, his mom has made the rules clear to him:

"The rules.
If she hollers, she is mine.
If she needs to be changed, she is always mine.
In the dictionary next to 'sitter,' there is not a picture of Grandma.
It's time to grow up.
Too late, you're out of time. Be a grown-up."

And so that is Bobby's life now--trying to be a grown-up, while longing to still be a kid hanging with the guys. He's dealing with the fevers and the poop and the puke and the sleepless nights and the two early morning transfers on the subway so that he can get Feather over to the baby-sitter's place before school. That baby-sitter, Jackie, had cared for Bobby himself a decade earlier:

"Jackie's poodle keeps barking at me. The stupid dog's known me for years and still keeps acting like it's never seen me.
What's the problem?
I walk into the toy-covered living room and remember playing in it when I was little.
Nothing's changed. Nothing.
I can almost taste the toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup that I couldn't get enough of.
I remember the box of play clothes and the corner off the dining room where me and Paco Morales painted the carpet polka-dot.
Jackie looks the same."

In THE FIRST PART LAST, Angela Johnson presents both the cautionary tale of teen pregnancy along with the positive life-altering aspects of parenthood, no matter at what age:

"Her eyes are the clearest eyes I've ever seen.
Sometimes she looks at me like she knows me.
Like she's known me forever, and everything I ever thought, too. It's scary how she looks at me.
And she's so new. Been on this planet for only a few months. I been thinking about it a whole lot lately. I feel old.
I feel old when I wake up at three thirty in the morning and change her diaper, then change it again when she pees right after I put her sleeper back on.
I feel old when I stroll into Mineo's, park her by my table while I eat a few slices and catch up on the comics I haven't read in weeks.
I really feel old when I'm holding her on the subway and some lady tells me what a good brother I am and how I'm so good with her. I feel stooped over then. You'd think I'd feel young.
For that one time on the way home I could pretend my baby is my sister. I could smile at the lady and say:
'Yeah, she's easy to deal with, my sister.'
'She looks just like me and my brothers.'
'I like to help my mom with her.'
Even if I'm feeling old when this stuff happens I just change her diaper, put my food down and hold her when she cries, and tell the woman on the train that she's mine.
Afterward I always kiss her, my baby, and look into her clear eyes that know everything about me, and want me to be her daddy anyway."

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com