After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

I bought this book because it was a Newbery Honor title. I'd received an Amazon gift certificate from my old colleagues in Geneva and used it to feed my longstanding juvenile literature habit. Admittedly, I would not have chosen this book otherwise. What did I know about rappers? About growing up black, in the mid-nineties, in Queens? Precious little. But, despite my ignorance, this story moved me in a way it couldn't have six months ago. You see, last July I didn't know anyone like D Foster, a child too old to be cute any more, bouncing from one foster home to the next with only her girl friends to keep her steady. Today, after having spent the last semester in P-town schools, I know at least one young woman who might see herself in these pages. It looks like tomorrow I'll be making a special delivery.