Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that, based on a true story, this depicts some horrifying events, including a graphic description of a young teen giving birth on the kitchen floor, assisted only by her much younger siblings, and the murder of a baby by exposure.
Families can talk about Shell's situation while pregnant. Why didn't anyone see what was happening and offer to help? Why didn't she ask for help? Whom could she have asked? Would it have changed anything?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
This was the late Siobhan Dowd's first novel, and it's a heartbreaking one. Based on a true story and set in Ireland in the '80s, it reveals a life that, one hopefully assumes, is far removed from that of most of its readers. For the first two-thirds of the book, it's a chronicle of a life no one should have to lead. Perhaps the saddest part of it is the way that Shell just keeps going along as if this is just what life is like, and there's no reason to even suspect that it could be better.
In the last third of the book it turns into a mystery. While the reader will have figured it out long before anyone in the book does, it's still a thriller. But throughout the book, there is one small hero who is almost overlooked. Though often squabbling with Trix, Shell's stalwart 9-year-old brother, Jimmy, is the first to figure out that she is pregnant, he gets beaten up trying to get Shell the answers she needs, and he is the only one to help her give birth, because he saw a calf born once and figures he knows all about it (he's not far wrong). His chipper and unobtrusive caring is one of the little touches that elevate what could have been a tale of unrelenting misery into something else, something hopeful ... and pure.
From The Book
The congregation launched into the Our Father as if every last soul was going down. Heaven. Bread. Trespass. Temptation. The words whisked passed Shell's ears like rabbits vanishing into their holes. She tried wriggling her nose to make it slimmer. Evil. Mrs McGrath's hat lurched in front of her, its feather looking drunk: three-to-one odds it would fall off. Declan Ronan, today's altar boy, was examining the tabernacle, licking his lips with half-shut eyes. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn't holy.
Plot Summary:
Life is tough for 15-year-old Shell. Since her mom died, her father has quit working and, when he isn't drinking, spends his time collecting for the church and skimming the donations for enough to buy booze. Mostly he isn't home, and Shell is left to take care of her younger brother and sister, Jimmy and Trix, with little money and no help.
She starts a relationship with a local boy, but after he leaves for America, Shell discovers that she's pregnant. Knowing nothing about having a baby, and with no adult to guide her, she is left to do the best she can on her own. But when she finally gives birth (in a harrowing scene, on the kitchen floor and aided only by her young siblings) to a stillborn baby, her problems have only begun.
Related Books:
Other Books by Siobhan Dowd:
The London Eye Mystery
Bog Child
Solace of the Road
Teens Dealing with Pregnancy:
Lucy Peale by Colby Rodowsky
Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
The First Part Last by Angela Johnson
The Braid by Helen Frost
Slam by Nick Hornby
Related Web Sites:
Author's Memorial Site
Obituary
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Sexual ContentYoung teens repeatedly have sex, not described, which results in pregnancy; kissing with tongue; a girl sees her father naked and aroused; references to periods, prostitutes, and abortion; a graphic depiction of childbirth. |
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ViolenceA boy is beaten up by a schoolmate. A baby is stillborn, another is left to die of exposure in a cave. |
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LanguageBritish slang: "fags" (for cigarettes), "shite," "ass." |
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Social BehaviorMain characters shoplift with no consequences. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoEveryone, including young teens, smokes constantly. Teens drink, including sneaking the communion wine. A father is a drunk. |
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