Heaven

Heaven by Angela Johnson

Heaven won the Coretta Scott King author award in 1999. Prior to writing this blog, I had read Angela Johnson’s The First Part Last because it won the Coretta Scott King author award in 2004. As I was reading Heaven this week, I discovered characters from the other novel – Bobby Morris and his little daughter Feather. Having the quirky personality that I do, I panicked! I really dislike reading books in a series out of order. But, I win! because The First Part Last is a prequel to Heaven. Actually, they are more like companion novels. They each survive alone.

I might as well… The First Part Last is the story of sixteen-year-old Bobby, an aspiring artist, son of equally talented parents, who plans to graduate high school early and train for a career. The day of his birthday, he comes home to find his girlfriend, Nia, sitting on his front steps and she has news for him. She is pregnant. They had mostly decided to give their child up for adoption. Bobby waivers on wanting to keep the baby, but Nia holds out. Then tragedy strikes and Bobby is left to make the decision on his own.

The First Part Last alternates voices between Bobby’s then – when he was supporting Nia during her pregnancy – and Bobby’s now – he is raising a daughter by himself with only minimal support from those around him. Bobby is a devoted and doting young father who plans to do what is right by his daughter even when he longs to run home to his own mother and beg her to do the job for him. A lovely little novel about a boy forced to grow up and grow up fast. Usually the books about teenage pregnancy and teenage single-parenting are about girls, the obstacles they face and the sacrifices they make. I remember thinking that this was refreshing change. You can find this novel in Young Adult.

Heaven is connected to The First Part Last through Bobby and Feather. The main character of Heaven is fourteen-year-old Marley and she babysits Feather when Bobby works. Marley becomes good friends with Bobby and benefits from watching the love he has for his little daughter. Marley knows there is a story there, but she is not one to ask questions. Bobby is instrumental in showing Marley that there are different types of families, unusual families, but that families can love and support one another despite their differences and even the differences within them.

Marley is content to live in the town of Heaven. She has her loving parents and her younger skateboard-loving brother, Butchy. She has a best friend, Shoogy, who belongs to an unusually perfect family – but Shoogy herself is anything but perfect. And she has an Uncle Jack whom she writes to, but has never met. Marley and Uncle Jack are both dreamers, and it turns out that that isn’t their only connection.

Marley’s world shatters the day she finds out that Uncle Jack is her real father and that the people she has only known as her parents are actually her aunt and uncle. And Butchy is really her cousin. She no longer knows who she is and where she came from. She no longer trusts her so-called parents. And she isn’t exactly sure she can accept Uncle Jack as her father.

Marley is no longer on speaking terms with her parents. But they give her room to come to terms with her new knowledge. She is still receiving letters from Uncle Jack who expects nothing in return. And there is a special box that she is given that contains some answers to her past including love letters between the mom she never knew and the father she never met. As she watches Shoogy and her family, and Bobby and Feather, Marley begins to see the beauty and the possibilities of unconditional love. This novel can be found in Children's.