Keesha's House
By Helen Frost
Grades
9-12
<p>An unforgettable narrative collage told in poems.</p><p>Keesha has found a safe place to live, and other kids gravitate to her house when they just can't make it on their own. They are Stephie — pregnant, trying to make the right decisions for herself and those she cares about; Jason — Stephie's boyfriend, torn between his responsibility to Stephie and the baby and the promise of a college basketball career; Dontay — in foster care while his parents are in prison, feeling unwanted both inside and outside the system; Carmen — arrested on a DUI charge, waiting in a juvenile detention center for a judge to hear her case; Harris — disowned by his father after disclosing that he's gay, living in his car, and taking care of himself; Katie — angry at her mother's loyalty to an abusive stepfather, losing herself in long hours of work and school.</p><p>Stretching the boundaries of traditional poetic forms — sestinas and sonnets — Helen Frost's extraordinary debut novel for young adults weaves together the stories of these seven teenagers as they courageously struggle to hold their lives together and overcome their difficulties.</p><p><strong>Praise for <i>Keesha's House</i></strong></p><p>"Frost has taken the poem-story to a new level with well-crafted sestinas and sonnets, leading readers into the souls and psyches of her teen protagonists." — <i>School Library Journal </i></p><p>"[T]his moving first novel tells the story in a series of dramatic monologues that are personal, poetic, and immediate... In a long note, Frost talks about the poetic forms she has used, the sestina and the sonnet. But most readers will be less interested in that framework than in the characters, drawn with aching realism, who speak poetry in ordinary words and make connections. — <i>Booklist</i><br /></p>
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