Home Girl

Alex Wheatle

$15.70

Publication Date: September 3rd, 2019

Publisher:

Black Sheep

ISBN:

9781617757532

Pages:

288

Description

When Naomi, a fourteen-year-old white girl, is placed with a black foster care family, her life takes some dramatic twists and turns.

“Another powerful and poignant novel deftly created by one of the most prolific master novelists on either side of the pond. Home Girl is a page-turner, with not a dull moment. Loved it from the rooter to the tooter.” —Eric Jerome Dickey, New York Times best-selling author of Before We Were Wicked

New from the best-selling black British author Alex Wheatle, Home Girl is the story of Naomi, a teenage girl growing up fast in the foster care system. It is a wholly modern story which sheds a much-needed light on what can be an unsettling life—and the consequences that follow when children are treated like pawns on a family chessboard.

Home Girl is fast-paced and funny, tender, tragic, and full of courage—just like Naomi. This is Alex Wheatle’s most moving and personal novel to date.

About the Author

ALEX WHEATLE is the author of several best-selling books including the young adult novels Kemosha of the Caribbean, Cane Warriors, and Home Girl, the modern classic Brixton Rock, and the award-winning Crongton series. He is the subject of the historical drama film Alex Wheatle, which is part of filmmaker Steve McQueen’s lauded Small Axe anthology series. His body of work was a finalist for the 2021 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature and has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. His latest work is Sufferah: The Memoir of a Brixton Reggae-Head.

Praise for Home Girl

Wheatle has delivered a definitive narrative steeped in cultural philosophy and human sensibilities. Despite the foibles of his tragic characters, a redemptive quality is present—persevering—a testament of the human will to survive against all odds . . . Highly recommended.
— Kaieteur News (Guyana)

With a tough exterior and brash attitude, Naomi is an authentic character in an unfortunate yet accurate picture of modern-day foster care in the UK . . . The ending is neither predictable nor sugarcoated, leaving readers rooting for this determined heroine.
— School Library Journal

Teenager Naomi, old before her time and as vulnerable as she is fierce, is growing up in the care system. Foster homes and pupil referral units revealing the unsettling, often bewildering reality of this existence. Wheatle’s empathy, authentic characters, and rich dialogue illuminate the dark.
— Observer Magazine (UK)

Alex Wheatle’s latest novel offers no unrealistic fairy tale happy ending. But the award-winning writer, who draws on his own experiences of a childhood in care, does offer some hope for Naomi, a sometimes difficult but very likeable heroine.
— Irish News, Children’s Book of the Week

As politicians might only see the population’s day-to-day lives in terms of statistics rather than experiences, (knowing how many people work on minimum wage doesn’t say anything about what the experience is like), they might benefit from more of an insight. A useful contemporary novel they should pick up is Alex Wheatle’s Home Girl, focusing on the experience of a girl in the foster care system who is constantly shifted around and can never find a permanent home. Wheatle’s other books might be just as beneficial, as he draws on his own experiences of Brixton and the social system.

— The Boar, included in The Politicians’ Required Reading List