{"id":10945,"date":"2019-09-04T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=10945"},"modified":"2020-07-08T11:04:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T16:04:31","slug":"foster-home-safe-for-home-girl-naomi-by-alex-wheatle-ya-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=10945","title":{"rendered":"Foster home safe for HOME GIRL Naomi? by Alex Wheatle (YA book review)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"book<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Not half-bad foster family, for once,
iccle bro and sis looking up to her –
why are they so nice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Mum died, Naomi took care of alcoholic Dad for years. Now the UK foster care system thinks the 14-year-old needs watching over\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naomi’s hostility to foster families quickly exhausts her social worker’s options, and the white teen is placed temporarily with a black family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colleen and Tony are nice enough, their kids like Naomi, too – but Tony’s parents aren’t keen on a white girl taking space where a black foster kid could be safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternative school kids are quick with their fists and loud with slangy curses. The black girls there aren’t liking Naomi’s new cornrow braids\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Colleen discovers Naomi’s love of urban dance, she arranges lessons at a real studio! Now isn’t the time for social services to place her with a suburban white family<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just published in the US by Black Sheep\/Akashic, Home Girl<\/em> is the latest in Wheatle’s YA books set in working class British towns, examining personal identity, racial relations, and finding one’s place in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When do we become ‘grown up enough’ to take on all of life’s responsibilities?
**kmm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book info<\/strong>: Home Girl \/ Alex Wheatle. Black Sheep\/Akashic Books, 2019. [author site<\/a>] [publisher site<\/a>] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not half-bad foster family, for once, iccle bro and sis looking up to her – why are they so nice? After Mum died, Naomi took care of alcoholic Dad for years. Now the UK foster care system thinks the 14-year-old needs watching over\u2026 Naomi’s hostility to foster families quickly exhausts her social worker’s options, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,19],"tags":[90,203,22,4,265,5,113,16,118,32,18,40,44,43,97,49,184,31,193,15,9,21,35,33,3],"class_list":["post-10945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diverse-books","category-fiction","tag-abandonment","tag-abuse","tag-behavior","tag-belonging","tag-caribbean","tag-coping","tag-dance","tag-determination","tag-economics","tag-england","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-friendship","tag-growing-up","tag-habits","tag-memories","tag-mothers","tag-non-us-author","tag-prejudice","tag-relationships","tag-school","tag-self-image","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-teens"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/booksyalove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/HomeGirl-1-131x200.jpg?fit=131%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10945"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11512,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10945\/revisions\/11512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}