Product Description

You try not to think. You try not to imagine, but then those cracks pop up, and these flashes squeeze right through. At first, some of it's not too bad, and you get stupid, maybe even wanting a little more, but then you pull yourself together, knowing what all is likely going to ooze out if you're not careful....

Fifteen-year-old America has been nowhere, has been nobody. Separated from his foster mother. A runaway. A patient. Without love. Without hope. And, eventually, without the will to live.

Until Dr. B. steps in. To listen. To explore. And to find within America both the story and the boy who are lost.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #186307 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780689857720
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
At the discretion of the social welfare system, a 5-year-old boy named America trustingly leaves the safe haven of his foster home for a visit with his desperate, drug-addicted mother. And because of that one lapse in adult judgment, a child is lost within the system until almost 11 years later when he tries to end his own life. It is the patient therapist Dr. B. who must coax an embittered and damaged America into revisiting all the dark alleys of that lonely suicide road in order to face down his fears and dare to be found. "I'm not that little kid anymore.... I'm not white and I'm not black and I'm not anything, but I'm a little bit of everything.... I look down and it's just me." Searingly raw and so painfully honest it nearly draws blood, young-adult novelist E.R. Frank's powerful sophomore effort about a boy nearly broken by neglect and abuse will dampen every eye and brand every heart. Reminiscent of Han Nolan's Born Blue and Sapphire's Push, America is a similarly cathartic combination of brutal truth and brilliant writing. It is simply not to be missed. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

From Publishers Weekly
HFrank's (Life Is Funny) well-crafted and moving story begins with a teenage America in a treatment facility after a suicide attempt and alternates between the present mostly his therapy sessions with Dr. B. and the past. Born to a crack addict mother, America was raised by kindly Mrs. Harper, the nanny of a rich white foster family who gave him up "after he started turning his color." The weekend before he starts kindergarten, he visits his birth mother in New York City, and she abandons him in a seedy apartment with his two young brothers. When the police find him years later and return him to Mrs. Harper, he's behind in school, swears constantly and has internalized the belief that he's bad. America is not a saint, but readers see glimmers of his intelligence (one heartbreaking series of scenes shows five-year-old America, unable to find a working telephone, writing Mrs. Harper's phone number everywhere so that he won't forget it), his sense of the poetic and even his kindness. His gradual progress through therapy is especially well orchestrated. The obstacles in his life seem insurmountable (after he returns to Mrs. Harper's, her half-brother repeatedly molests him and he flees to New York City again). But as Mrs. Harper is always telling America, there's "real meaning in the small things," and the author's ability to capture so much emotion in the details makes this book remarkable. For example, when America works up the courage to visit Mrs. Harper in the nursing home, her walls are covered with angels she painted to look like him. A powerful story of forgiveness both of oneself and of others. Ages 12-up.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 & Up--Born to a drug-addicted mother, 15-year-old America had been lost in the child-welfare system for years before he finally wound up in a residential treatment center. There, over a period of several more years, a capable therapist coaxes him out of his anger and suicidal depression. In alternating chapters of "Now" and "Then," the teen tells about his anger at Dr. B's efforts to get him to think about his past; his warm memories of his early childhood with elderly Mrs. Harper; his terrifying memories of his stay with his mother, who abandoned him and his two older brothers; his two lost years spent perhaps in foster homes and residential institutions; and his return to Mrs. Harper and her half brother and caretaker, Browning. It was Browning who served as father figure and baseball coach, who taught him to read, and who introduced him, at nine, to vodka and to sex. It was Browning who died when America set his blanket on fire and ran away, hating himself for being so bad, for having enjoyed the sexual tenderness, for caring. The author's control of this story is impressive. It leaks out of America's memories, through the cracks he can't quite cover over with his aggressive behavior. Even at his baddest and most foulmouthed, America is still the appealing small boy Mrs. Harper raised, a boy certainly worth finding. Readers cannot help but hope for his recovery and cheer for the patient therapist. More developed than Adam Rapp's The Buffalo Tree (Front Street, 1997), this is another discouraging picture of our juvenile-care system, but it is also a moving story of one of its survivors.
Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Cathy is, once again, wrong.
Cathy says AMERICA uses gritty language authentic to the experience of the protagonist. She's right about that. Then she says it's not appropriate as a library book. On this point, she is dead wrong. In a perfect world, characters like Frank's chronically abused America would only exist in works of troubling fiction. But as the author understands, there are thousands of kids living America's life in our free nation every day. Some do not suffer to the degree America has in the broken foster care system. Some only suffer a taste of abuse. But every teen that believes he or she is the ONLY one living this kind of life will find great comfort and kinship within the pages of America, in part because Frank doesn't shy from the authenticity Cathy finds "offensive." Well, in a way I agree with her. It is deeply offensive that children must endure the kind of pain America and real kids like him have to endure. But telling their stories is NOT offensive. Telling their stories can, in fact, save lives. America may not be for all readers, but that is for each parent to decide for their OWN children. It's not Cathy's decision to make. And as long as Cathy has the intellectual freedom to say it does NOT belong on library shelves, my right to see it safely shelved is protected as well.

America IS Beautiful
America is by far the best portrayal of a young person trapped in society's system of foster care that I have ever seen. The book may be too real for some, but not if you are a realist.

America's battle to understand who he is in this world is an exhiliratingly sad ride that alerts readers to a child welfare system that is overworked and understaffed. America actually gets "lost" in the system, which is symbolic of the thousands of American children who are ignored and "lost" everyday in our country's protection services.

America reminds us that our children need more than just parents to raise and watch out for them. Our children need other adults, teachers, coaches, counselors, neighbors and general role models to look out for our youth and set a positive example for them.

All of those commercials that ask for communities to take a second to get to know their youth are not for those of us who already do that. Even if you chose not to have kids, our country was not built on the attitude of "It's not my responsibility."

I love America symbolically, literally and on so many levels I can't even put it into words.

America is beautiful. If this book doesn't touch your emotions, then you are not human. This book is raw, real and heartbreakingly intriguing.

Thank you E.R. Frank for an expertly written Young Adult novel.

Contemplate this...
Please, step back and pause for a moment. If you don't understand this book, if it is uninspirational or overwhelmingly disturbing, if this novel comes across as entirely wrong in the context of reality, you need to gain some perspective on the lives of so many children. You need a "reality check." It is through ignorance that injustice exists, and these kids suffer for it daily. Step out of the box, please...you'll be changed, and glad you did. More importantly, you'll be able to help. At that point, help.

If you haven't read the book, please read the book. Then, help.