A Swift Pure Cry (by Siobhan Dowd)

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.

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: Shell's stalwart 9-year-old brother, Jimmy, who's the first to figure out that she's pregnant. 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.

Author: Siobhan Dowd
Publisher: David Fickling Books
Publication date: April 1, 2007
Number of pages: 309
Hardcover price: $16.99
Read Aloud: 14
Read Alone: 14