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  • I have been meaning to read this book for quite a while and just got around to it because we are reading it in September for book club. I enjoyed Johnson's novel. It definately was well written, however, I'm not sure I understand the title. I can't wait to discuss it, to see what everyone else think ... Continue

    I have been meaning to read this book for quite a while and just got around to it because we are reading it in September for book club. I enjoyed Johnson's novel. It definately was well written, however, I'm not sure I understand the title. I can't wait to discuss it, to see what everyone else thinks. It is a sad stroy and it seems very ope ended allowing the reader speculate as to what will happen next.Bobby, sixteen, finds out on his birthday that his girlfriend is pregnant. First Part Last relates his story of the first months of his daughter's life as well as remembering the pregnancy.This book has won the Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner and the Michael Printz Award.Discussion Questions1. What would your parents do if you told them you and your significant other were pregnant?2. How would you react if you found out you or your girlfriend were pregnant? Would it be similar or different to Bobby and Nia's reaction?3. Does the format of the book appeal to you? Why or why not?4. Bobby deals with stress by painting graffiti? How do you deal with stress?5. How would your parents react if you had been arrested? Would it be worse then dealing with the police as Bobby states on page 70 "...The cops can't do anything as bad to me as my mom can, and she never has to put a hand on me."6. Bobby's parents are very different. What are your parents like? Are they similar to each other? Different? How so?7. Would you have kept Feather if you were Bobby? Why or why not?8. When you finished First Part Last, how did you feel?9. Why do you think Johnson named the book First Part Last?10. If you had a baby, what would you name him/her? Why? Read page 123, "She cam t me so slowly I felt like I was in a dream. Four steps away, three, then two...Then she was all dark hair, hands in fists, Nia's nose and mouth. She came to me so slow and it was just like somebody brushed the air with a feather." Do you think this is why Bobby named his baby Feather?11. Where Nia's parents? Did they not want to be involved in Feather's life even though they said they would support Bobby in keeping Feather?

    

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• ― SheReads said on Mar 5, 2007 | Add your feedback

This little thing with the perfect face and hands doing nothing but counting on me. And me wanting nothing else but to run crying into my own mom's room and have her do the whole thing.

It's not going to happen....

Bobby is your classic urban teenaged boy -- impulsive, eager, restless. On his sixteenth birthday he gets some news from his girlfriend, Nia, that changes his life forever. She's pregnant. Bobby's going to be a father. Suddenly things like school and house parties and hanging with friends no longer seem important as they're replaced by visits to Nia's obstetrician and a social worker who says that the only way for Nia and Bobby to lead a normal life is to put their baby up for adoption.

With powerful language and keen insight, Johnson looks at the male side of teen pregnancy as she delves into one young man's struggle to figure out what "the right thing" is and then to do it. No matter what the cost.

• Printz Awardteen parentsCoretta Scott King Author Awarfathersbook clubrelationshipsYALSA BBYA 2004realistic fictionawardsfiction
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