Bobby is a sixteen year old parent, struggling to take care of his newborn daughter, Feather. He wants to do the right thing for her, but he’s not perfect. All he can do is keep trying.

I loved this book from page 1. It’s told in interspersed chapters, past events from the time Bobby finds out his girlfriend, Nia, is pregnant, and current events as Bobby struggles to take care of Feather. Bobby is such a real person and I just wanted to hug him the whole time. I loved all of the conflict he goes through, how he struggles between being a parent and being a teenager. His parents were also wonderfully written, defying all mother and father stereotypes. Mom was strict and stubborn, Dad was sensitive and overprotective.

The whole time I read, I kept waiting to figure out why Bobby was a single dad. I wondered if Nia died or if she simply didn’t want anything to do with the baby. I wondered why the couple didn’t give Feather up for adoption. Slowly as the book goes on, all that information is given to the reader in layers, one by one. Slowly it builds up to a powerful climax, where the end of the past sections meets the beginning of the current sections. I cried. It was beautifully written and completely unexpected.

I’m not sure what else to say about this book. It’s little and takes almost no time to read, but it’s gut-wrenchingly powerful. It’s an amazing book about responsible teenage fatherhood, an unfortunately unusual situation (the responsible part, I mean). This is the sort of book I’d love for all teenagers to read, especially those who are faced with teen pregnancy. It well deserved its 2004 Printz Award.