This is Sapphire's first novel. She was born in 1950 and grew up on army bases in California, Pennsylvania, and Texas. She was graduated from City College in New York, received an MFA from Brooklyn College, and taught reading and writing to teenagers and adults in Harlem and the Bronx for eight years. Sapphire is a performance poet and the author of American Dreams. She lives in New York City.
It does not get much worse than 16-year-old Precious Johnson's life. Illiterate, physically and sexually abused by both parents, and impregnated for the second time by her father‘her first child has Down syndrome‘she is outraged when she is suspended from her Harlem middle school. It is this suspension, however, that offers hope as Precious enrolls in an alternative program, learns to read and write, and begins a journal that both chronicles her disturbing life and becomes her outlet against the brutality and confusion she endures. The language is raw, and the situations are graphic enough to elicit an occasional cringe on the listener's part. Precious's story rings so true and Sapphire's reading is so realistic that listeners are compelled to persevere to the end. Highly recommended.‘Susan McCaffrey, Sturgis Pub. Sch. Lib., Mich.
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