Keesha's House by Frost, Helen

Bibliography:

Frost, Helen. 2003. Keesha's House. New York: Frances Foster Books (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). ISBN 13:978037430643



Plot Summary:

One by one troubled teens find their way to Keesha's House, a refuge and safe place for anyone needing a home. The house does not belong to Keesha, it belongs to a man named Joe. Joe understands what it is like to need a safe place to sleep, so he opens his house to kids in need. There are no strings attached, they may stay as long as needed without anyone bothering them. Although the house does not belong to Joe, Keesha is the one spreading the word whenever she senses one of her high school classmates might need a place to stay, known as Keesha's house.

Critical Analysis:
Helen Frost's Keesha's House give the perspective of six different kids through poem. As I read these poems I was sure they were written in style of free verse but to my surprise they are written as strict traditional form. The way she gives her character a voice appears to me as free verse because the character express themselves freely and with comfort and ease. These six characters have all odds against them. Stephie is pregnant and not sure what to do. Jason is Stephie's boyfriend and father of her baby. Dontay is a foster kid whose foster parents don't seem to care much about him. Harris' father has disowned him when he learned that he was gay. Carmen's been arrested for DUI. Katie is running away from her mom because her mom's boyfriend is very abusive. All of these teens have their own problems to bare, but at Keesha's house they feel safe and supportive. Keesha is the one they can confide in and assigns the rooms, just as if it was her house. Keesha's house is written from two different perspectives. One from the teen point-of-view and adults and the teens. The adult point-of-view is written in sonnets, giving a different view of how the teens view the world as compared to the adults. I enjoyed this book and appreciation it style and format. This book gave me a new perspective of poetry in action.



Review Excerpt(s):

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up-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. The house in the title isn't really Keesha's; it belongs to Joe. His aunt took him in when he was 12, and now that he's an adult and the owner of the place, he is helping out kids in the same situation. Keesha needs a safe place to stay-her mother is dead; her father gets mean when he drinks, and he drinks a lot. She wants to stay in school, all these teens do, and Keesha lets them know they can stay at Joe's. There's Stephie, pregnant at 16, and terrified to tell anyone except her boyfriend. Harris's father threw him out when his son confided that he is gay. Katie's stepfather has taken to coming into her room late at night, and her mother refuses to believe her when she tells. Carmen's parents have run off, and she's been put into juvie for a DUI. Dontay is a foster kid with two parents in jail. Readers also hear from the adults in these young people's lives: teachers, parents, grandparents, and Joe. It sounds like a soap opera, but the poems that recount these stories unfold realistically. Revealing heartbreak and hope, these poems could stand alone, but work best as a story collection. Teens may read this engaging novel without even realizing they are reading poetry.Angela J. Reynolds, Washington County Cooperative Library Services, Hillsboro, ORCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.



From Booklist

Gr. 6-10. Like Virginia Euwer Wolff's True Believer (2001) and much contemporary YA fiction, 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. Keesha finds shelter in a house in her inner-city neighborhood and helps other troubled teens find home and family there ("like finding a sister when I'm old / enough to pick a good one"). Stephie is pregnant, and she's heartbroken that her boyfriend doesn't want the baby. Harris is gay; his dad has thrown him out. Carmen is fighting addiction. Dontay's parents are in jail, and he doesn't feel comfortable in his latest foster home. Interwoven with the angry, desperate teen voices are those of the adults in their lives: caring, helpless, abusive, indifferent. In a long note, Frost talks about the poetic forms she has used, the sestina and the sonnet. But most readers will be less interested in that framework than in the characters, drawn with aching realism, who speak poetry in ordinary words and make connections. Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved



Connections:
You could have students act out book as if it was a play, assigning students to play the different characters written in the book.