![]() ![]() ![]() She takes readers on a scary, exhausting ride, but her women are strong enough to survive, to overcome their differences, and, in the end, to try for the family they both crave. Grant creates a nightmarish world in which the few who care are nearly overwhelmed by the sick, desperate, predatory, indifferent, and damaged. Nothing in her life, however, has taught her how to accept help when it's offered, and as Margaret is understandably reluctant to open herself to further hurt, there is a gulf between them that they both must cross. ![]() Although Raina puts up a tough front, her stories are an explicit cry for help. She's especially drawn to Raina, who shows up only to drop off beautifully written, horrible tales of childhood abuse and neglect, of living on the streets with a junkie, of watching him killed only moments after she agreed to prostitute herself for his habit. By day she watches teenagers trickle in braised, high, cynical, hopeless by night she sits at home recalling her miscarriages and failed marriage, fretting over the school's shameful facilities, thinking about babies having babies. Over the years, Grant has received numerous other distinctions. In 1991 she won the first PEN/Norma Klein Award, for an emerging voice among American writers of children’s fiction. Margaret Johnson teaches at a city school neglected by the administration and the students. Grant has published twelve young adult fiction novels since 1980. A bitter, middle-aged teacher and a harshly used teenage mother reach out to each other in this mean-streets story from Grant (Mary Wolf, 1995, etc.). ![]()
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