KEESHA'S HOUSE

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frost, Helen. 2003. KEESHA'S HOUSE. New York, NY: Frances Foster Books Farrar,
Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374400125

PLOT SUMMARY
This book of poetry for teens is written as a contemporary novel. The plot revolves around a cast of characters who are interconnected. Stephie is a pregnant teenager afraid to tell her parents and the girlfriend of star athlete Jason who is worried about his college options. Keesha is a friend who moves out to get away from her father who is abusive when he drinks. Dontay is unhappy in foster care; Carmen lands in jail when she's caught drinking. Harris is a gay teen whose parents don't understand. Katie's mother has boyfriends who molests her. Helen Frost also gives the parents of these teens a voice as their lives begin to unravel.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Helen Frost has written a moving story in chapter book form. With the turn of every page, a new character has a voice. Their name is written next to the title to keep the characters straight as you read this disturbing but realistic tale of teenagers in crisis. Once the six characters are introduced, the voices of adults are also portrayed so the reader can interpret both sides of the story. The voices are realistic and the reader can form a picture of them in their mind as they hear them speak on the page. Even though many different character are featured, it is easy to keep their stories straight because of the way Frost depicts them speaking.

Most teens reading this book would not realize it is poetry as it's not presented in a traditional form. Frost succeeds in creating a compelling, realistic story about teens that would make them want to turn the page, regardless of the genre. The reader learns of the poetry methods used when they finish the story.

At the end of the book, Frost gives notes on the forms of poetry utilized in her novel. The reader then learns about Sestinas which is a poem of six six-line stanzas, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza. (For example, in THAT ONE WORD she writes as her ending stanza line, "Freeze frame on that one word: Did you say". The first line of the next stanza reads, "him? I used to try to think of I'd say", ending with the same word as the last line of the stanza above. Frost also writes in sonnet form and gives specific chapter notations which enables the reader to refer back to the poem. The author employs English, Italian, crown and hybrid sonnets in this sad but realistic tale.

PERSONAL OPINION
I really enjoyed this book and will recommend it to our high school librarians. The book can be read in a short amount of time and I found myself going back to reread specific characters stories. The anguish of the parents dealing with their children's situation is real. Frost's biography details her work with juvenile detention facilities. She has used their stories to weave this believable tale. I learned about crown sonnets and referred back to the poems to determine how they were written.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
From School Library Journal
"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. It sounds like a soap opera, but the poems that recount these stories unfold realistically. Revealing heartbreak and hope, these poems could stand alone, but work best as a story collection. Teens may read this engaging novel without even realizing they are reading poetry."

From Booklist
"Like Virginia Euwer Wolff's True Believer (2001) and much contemporary YA fiction, this moving first novel tells the story in a series of dramatic monologues that are personal, poetic, and immediate, with lots of line breaks that make for easy reading, alone or in readers' theater. 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."

AWARDS
Michael L. Printz Honor Book

CONNECTIONS
Students would enjoy dividing up these characters and reading them aloud as if it were a play (and it reads that way). Discussion of ways to portray the voice of the character could be done as a class as the readers work through this novel.

Readers who enjoyed this might like:

Going, K.L. FAT KID RULES THE WORLD. ISBN 0399239901

Johnson, Angela. THE FIRST PART LAST. ISBN 9780689849237

Lynch, Chris. FREE WILL. ISBN 9780064472029