The First Part Last

Booktalk
Sixteen year-old Bobby’s life is nearly perfect: he has good friends, a beautiful girlfriend named Nia, and a wonderful family. This perfect world begins to crumble the day he gets the news: despite all their precautions, mistakes were made and Nia is pregnant. In chapters that cut back and forth between “then” and “now” we see life change rapidly for Bobby, often for the worse, before and after the birth of baby Feather. He finds himself alone, facing single-fatherhood, with plans for adoption thrown out the window after being faced with a tragedy.

Can Bobby balance school and raising his child alone? How will he provide for baby Feather? Will his friends and family ever understand what he’s going through? As time goes on and Bobby cares for Feather in the first part of her life, he begins to see the beauty and love that makes him believe we should all experience life with The First Part Last.

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Awards

 * Coretta Scott King Award - 2004
 * Michael L. Printz Award - 2004

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 * True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff
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 * Keesha's House by Helen Frost

A Little More Information
Johnson, Angela. The First Part Last. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2003.

ISBN-13: 978-0689849237

Kindle Price: $5.98

Annotation: A teenage boy must face the realities of single-fatherhood while trying to balance school, work, and social life.