Keesha's House

Frost, H. (2003). Keesha’s House. Library of Congress, USA.  

ISBN 0-374-34064-1

Is being a teen the same now as it used to be? In Helen Frost’s prose novel, Keesha’s House, readers are introduced to seven different teenagers in the inner city that are all experiencing some difficulty within their life. Even though Joe owns the house, Keesha is the first teenager that lives there, due to circumstances with her father’s alcoholism, and welcomes all others in for safety. Teenagers tend to want to be near Keesha and build relationships worth keeping after high school.

Helen Frost brings in various types of poetry to convey messages from the teens. When teens are speaking, she uses sestinas. When the poem is told from the perspective of adults, Frost writes in sonnets.  According to School Library Journal, “Frost has taken the poem-story to a new level with well-crafted sestinas and sonnets, leading readers into the souls and psyches of her teen protagonists.” This may not been seen immediately, because Frost made the decision to not express her various poetry choices until after you have experienced the story. The second time you read the novel, you will have a much higher appreciation for the writing.

Through poems, Helen Frost gives readers a glimpse into the trials and tribulations of what teenagers experience in today’s world. Jason and Stephie are expecting a child, but Jason is struggling with accepting the child, or foregoing his scholarship. Stephie is struggling with Jason’s initial lack of affection for her. Dontay is a foster child, who struggles with accepting that foster parents really do have interest in him and have understanding for his situation with his parent’s in prison. Carmen has once again been picked up by the police for a DUI even though she was only driving to save a friend in need. Harris is dealing with being gay, living in his car, and being excluded from his family who finds it against their morals. Katie is running and hiding from her mother’s abusive boyfriend. Finally there is Keesha. She is hiding from living in a house with a drunk and abusive father.

Through Frost’s poetic novel, teenagers are shown a path of hope. Even with the sometimes depressing angle and empathy from the readers, they leave the book with a sense of hope for all characters to learn from their devastation and move on to a productive life. Overall, Joe is the savior for these young adults, who once had to have his own assistance when he was younger.

Including the adults perspective in this novel, Frost sets aside two sections, written in sonnets, to give a different point of view. Making the choice to use a different section, different type of poetry, and different perspective give the reader another angle as to how different these two generations and lives are.

Frost has grabbed the readers attention by having a straight to the point novel with so many stories, you are left wanting to know more about the teenagers lives after high school. However, she manages to incorporate many different challenges that young adults face on a daily basis that will also guide more readers to enjoy this prose novel. Perfectly stated by American Library Association is that “This moving first novel tells the story in a series of dramatic monologues that are personal, poetic, and immediate, with lots of line breaks that make for easy reading, alone or in readers' theater.”

School Library Journal Angela J. Reynolds, Washington County Cooperative Library Services, Hillsboro, OR
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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