Imani All Mine

Andrea Higbie

...[T]he story of great promise shining through monstrous obstacles....The devastation of that promise is expertly depicted...
— The New York Times Book Review

Martha Southgate

Using Tasha's first-person voice with authority and grace, Porter tells a story that is true of many of our girls. Tasha makes a lot of mistakes and suffers enormous tragedy, but her spirit and life go on. You'll think of her the next time you see a baby with a baby—and maybe your thoughts won't be as harsh.
— Essence Magazine

KLIATT

This is the heartbreaking story of Tasha and her baby, Imani. Tasha is a fifteen-year-old African American unwed mother, living in the wrong part of Buffalo, the part of town where gunshots and drug dealers are standard parts of the background and you might pass a dead body on your way to school in the morning. Tasha loves her small daughter tremendously and is determined to be a good mother to her. Unfortunately, tragically, her best efforts are not good enough to protect Imani from the dangers of the neighborhood. Porter, who is the author of the Addy books in the American Girl series and one earlier novel, writes very well, putting the reader inside Tasha's thoughts and feelings. Tasha longs for love, both motherly and romantic, and lavishes her pent-up feelings on her baby, who was conceived in rape. Through scenes at home, in school, in church, and on the street, through interaction with her mother, friends, teachers, and neighbors, Tasha becomes a figure of strength and intelligence as she struggles to understand herself and her situation. The reader is drawn in emotionally by this powerful book; Tasha is admirable in her search for herself as both a daughter and a mother, and the tragic outcome of the story is deeply felt. This book, which would be R-rated for language (characters speak like real people), sex (a lovely, non-graphic description of sexual discovery), and violence (also non-graphic, but ever-present, including Tasha's memory of her rape, and the death of a child) is a wonderful, moving, high-quality work that offers much for teenagers to think about. KLIATT Codes: SA*—Exceptional book, recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, andadults. 1999, Houghton Mifflin/Mariner, 218p, 21cm, 98-37722, $12.00. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Barbara Shepp; Chevy Chase, MD, November 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 6)

Library Journal

Tasha is 15, an honors student struggling to live up to her mother's dreams of college and life beyond their poor black neighborhood. She is also a rape victim and a single mother, determined that she alone will give her baby, Imani, a good future in the midst of poverty, drugs, gangs, and ignorance. Even the baby's name is a sign of Tasha's hope--Imani means "faith." When gang violence assaults her family, Tasha's innocence is shattered, and she must summon every ounce of strength within her to survive. This story, told in Tasha's street-lingo, is full of humor, joy, sadness, hopeful innocence, and gritty realism. Porter, author of All-Bright Court (LJ 6/15/91) and the Addy books in the "American Girl" series, gives Tasha great wisdom, grace, charm, and a moving, poetic voice. Highly recommended for most fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/98.]--Karen Anderson, Superior Court Law Lib., Phoenix

School Library Journal

YA-Imani's name means "faith," and her mother, Tasha, is a 15-year-old African-American high school honors student. Tasha's mother is emotionally distant and the teen resolutely turns away from the attempts of other well-meaning adults to help her. Gradually, it emerges that Imani was conceived as the result of a rape, but Tasha cannot see anything of the hated father in the baby. Daily occurrences include gunfire, encounters with crack dealers, cleaning up after her mother's alcoholic friend, and her first willing sexual encounters (with a boy as confused as she is). Porter tells this story entirely in dialect, and although the lack of quotation marks sometimes creates confusion, for the most part the narrative draws readers into this teenager's life. The author is particularly successful at portraying adults: teachers, relatives, and neighbors are believably and often amusingly complex even while Tasha's view of them remains that of a child. In an emotionally wrenching ending, Imani is killed, the victim of gang violence, whereupon Tasha finds faith of a different sort through her community. In a final twist that makes sense allegorically even while it is perhaps the most inexplicable development of all, Tasha chooses to become pregnant again. Whether seen as a tale of hopelessness or "faith," this tale is sure to find a passionate readership among teens, who will hear a kindred spirit in Tasha's vivid, unforgettable voice.-Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Andrea Higbie

...[T]he story of great promise shining through monstrous obstacles....The devastation of that promise is expertly depicted... -- The New York Times Book Review

Pittsburg Post Gazette

Elegant, moving . . . a triumph of spirit.

Kirkus Reviews

African-American Porter has again created a protagonist with her own voice and an affirming take on life in Buffalo's inner city-where guns kill the innocent and where teenagers too often end up having babies. High-schooler Tasha, the 15-year-old narrator, tells her story with an authenticity that adds even more grit and realism to a tale that's often a headline. She lives with her baby daughter Imani (meaning faith "in some African language") and her mother Earlene. Imani looks just like Tasha, which makes Tasha, who doesn't have much else of her own, rather happy. Her story builds quietly, almost off-handedly...as the girl describes her exhausting daily routine in the most matter-of-fact terms: not only must she care for Imani, but she also has to bring the baby along to school. While Imani is taken care of in the school's daycare center, Tasha conscientiously attends classes. Her own mother, never married, was too busy with her boyfriends to comfort Tasha on the night she was raped at knife-point in a nearby park, and she was even too busy to notice (until labor began) that her daughter was pregnant. The rapist and father of Imani is a fellow student, a boy who, Tasha thought, "really liked" her ("As fat as I am. As black as I am"), which is why she left the Skate-A-Rama with him that evening. Now, thankfully, he doesn't even seem to recognize her. Meanwhile, as she tries to build a life for herself and her newborn, Tasha records all of Imani's milestones; nervously observes her neighbor's drug-dealing; grudgingly grows fond of her mother's white boyfriend Mitch; and stoically tries to keep up with her schoolwork.