Bibliography
Frost, Helen. KEESHA’S HOUSE. 2003. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ISBN 0374340641
Critical Analysis
In this contemporary young adult verse novel we are introduced to seven teenagers whose common thread are the difficulties they face each day. Stephie is pregnant and struggling to make the right decisions for herself and her family, “Love and terror both grow bigger/every day inside me.” Jason is torn between his responsibility to Stephie and the baby, and the dream of a college basketball scholarship. Dontay is in foster care waiting for his parents to get out of prison, and doesn’t feel like he fits in anywhere, “I don’t mind sleepin’ on the floor a night/or two. Three or four places I can spend the night/a couple times before they figure out/I got no place/to live.” We also meet Katie, who has run from an abusive step father, Harris, who is kicked out of his house because he confesses that he’s gay, and Carmen, who after being arrested for DUI, is awaiting her case to be heard in a juvenile detention center. And in the center of it all is Keesha, whose mother is dead and whose father is an alcoholic.
Keesha has found a safe place to live at Joe’s. About a third of the way through the book we find out that Joe was just like they were when he was twelve, “-bruised, scared, clenched fists,-/all I knew then was: I could stay.” His Aunt Annie took him in and told him that he could stay as long as he needed. He stayed until she died and left the house to him. He knows that he can’t give the kids the real care that they need, but what he does say that I found profound was this: “I can give them space-and space is time.”
In the last chapter of this book we have a sense that each character is hopeful for their future. The poems flow into one another freely, one person’s words turning into the next. Dontay talks about his parents getting out of prison in three months, “Three months. That’s a mountain I can climb.” And on the next page is Carmen who is talking about not having a drink in three months, “Three months now on that mountain. I can climb/it step by step.” The characters drift in an out of Keesha’s house, some staying just a few days, some much longer, but all ending up in a better place once they have visited this house with the wide blue door set back off of the street.
Review Excerpt(s)
PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY Review: “Making the most of the poetic forms, the author breathes life into these teens and their stories, resulting in a thoughtfully composed and ultimately touching book.”
KIRKUS REVIEWS: “In a surprisingly rigid format, the poems manage to seem spontaneous and still carry the plot easily. With a number of threads to follow, no one character is at the center, but there is great satisfaction in seeing the narratives gradually mesh as the isolation recedes and support is given. Impressive.”
KLIATT Review: “A new addition to the poetry novel genre, Keesha's House is composed of sonnets and sestinas in both traditional and creative structures. Frost uses these forms to introduce us to the teens who congregate in and around a safe haven, a house owned by a man named Joe who "knows the value" of having a place to stay when your own home has become toxic.”
VOYA Review: “Keesha's house with its blue door is really Joe's-a haven for lost and unwanted teens in trouble, offering shelter, safety, and sober comfort when the loving home for which one wishes just is not happening. Compelling first-person accounts by and about seven bewildered teens grip the reader.”
Connections
Invite students to write their own sestinas and sonnets about something important in their lives or at school. Talk about ways to turn their ideas into a short book. Display these in the classroom of hallway.
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