Imani All Mine [Hardcover]

Connie Rose Porter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1999

Connie Porter's first novel, ALL BRIGHT COURT, was greeted nationwide by the highest critical acclaim. In her new novel, Porter returns to the ghettoized world of Buffalo, New York, with the wonderfully affecting story of Tasha, fourteen years old and the unwed mother of a baby girl. Tasha is a remarkable character, a child mothering a child - spunky, sassy, brimming with the hopefulness and frank wisdom of youth despite her circumstances. The name she gives her daughter, Imani, is a sign of her determination and fundamental trust: Imani means faith. "Mama say I'm grown now because I got Imani. She say Imani all mine. I know she all mine, and I like it just like that, not having to share my baby with no one." Narrated in Tasha's street-smart and lyrical voice, Imani All Mine tracks Tasha's progress as she navigates her journey to adulthood in an increasingly violent world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The doctor say she see it every day, babies having babies." Fifteen-year-old Tasha Dawson narrates a tale of teenage motherhood in Porter's second adult novel (after All-Bright Court). Balancing her honor-roll grades with the perils of surviving inner-city Buffalo, N.Y., Tasha gives birth to Imani?a child conceived in violence and given a name that means "faith." . The young mother expresses a powerful, protective love for her daughter even as she herself negotiates her existence among drug dealers and bigoted authorities and explores her own adolescent sexuality. She struggles to understand her mother's new relationship with a white man; her own desires, shame and pride; and the nature of a God who is both merciless and loved. Just when Tasha appears to have found a place for herself with Imani and in school, her world is devastated by a flash of injustice that changes her life forever. Porter spins the tale in a series of flashbacks, telling Tasha's story in a nonlinear fashion and with a bold dialect, mirroring the survival strategies of indirection that Tasha employs in her complex navigation of young adulthood, motherhood and urban life. Porter is also known as a young-adult fiction writer (the Addy books in the American Girls series), and at times this novel slips uncomfortably into YA simplicity, especially in its resolutely uplifting final scenes, which offer an almost cloyingly spiritual happy ending to Tasha's complicated, earthbound story. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-Imani's name means "faith," and her mother, Tasha, is a 15-year-old African-American high school honors student. Tasha's mother is emotionally distant and the teen resolutely turns away from the attempts of other well-meaning adults to help her. Gradually, it emerges that Imani was conceived as the result of a rape, but Tasha cannot see anything of the hated father in the baby. Daily occurrences include gunfire, encounters with crack dealers, cleaning up after her mother's alcoholic friend, and her first willing sexual encounters (with a boy as confused as she is). Porter tells this story entirely in dialect, and although the lack of quotation marks sometimes creates confusion, for the most part the narrative draws readers into this teenager's life. The author is particularly successful at portraying adults: teachers, relatives, and neighbors are believably and often amusingly complex even while Tasha's view of them remains that of a child. In an emotionally wrenching ending, Imani is killed, the victim of gang violence, whereupon Tasha finds faith of a different sort through her community. In a final twist that makes sense allegorically even while it is perhaps the most inexplicable development of all, Tasha chooses to become pregnant again. Whether seen as a tale of hopelessness or "faith," this tale is sure to find a passionate readership among teens, who will hear a kindred spirit in Tasha's vivid, unforgettable voice.
Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; First edition. edition (January 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395838088
• ISBN-13: 978-0395838082
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,049,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars IMANI ALL MINE, September 5, 2000

By 

NappyGirl (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Imani All Mine (Hardcover)

''How stupid I was that night. . . . Thinking he really liked me. As fat as I am. As black as I am. As much as my body look like it ain't never supposed to be loved by no boy.'' --Tasha, IMANI ALL MINE

IMANI ALL MINE is a beautifully written story about a smart 15 year old girl that refuses to be anyone's stereotype of a young unwed mother.

All too often society is quick to disregard or deem as unimportant the suffering and yearning of poor African-American teenage mothers. People may try to paint Tasha as a victim but she trancends the lable, refusing to apply it to herself as she carves out a life for herself and her young daughter in her tough inner city neighborhood.

Tasha's life isn't one that you'll see portrayed on Dawson's Creek, she lives a seperate reality where there are no cotillions or first dates. Porter has an excellent ear for urban dialogue and infuses Imani with a compassionate spirit that speaks to the heart of the reader. IMANI ALL MINE is a touching story that I would highly recommend to anyone.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterfully written, gripping story, mature themes, June 14, 2005

By 

Jennifer "jennifer370" (Taunton, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Imani All Mine (Paperback)

I have to agree with one of the previous reviews putting Porter alongside J.D. Salinger & Steinback. That's all I could think about reading it, that this could go alongside the Grapes of Wrath & The Catcher in the Rye. Its seductively written. Porter is a master at weaving in all the beautiful and horrid elements of inner city life. Its not pretty, but the writting is.

The ending is almost metaphoric, I still sit back and wonder about Imani, her presence in the story, if she is like one of those missing angels from Tasha's manger. As it is Imani who helps Tasha grow through her deviled past.

The book has some very tough graphic moments in it, especially when it comes to the description of Tasha's rape. Its written for a mature audience, as it also graphically explores Tasha's growing sexuality. Porter walks the fine line of realistically depicting inner city life without sentamentalizing or glorifying motherhood. Porter has written Tasha's story as it is--there's no beating around any bushes.

As a teacher or adult, I would be careful who's hand you put this book into. It would be very easy for a less mature reader to sentamentalize Tasha's plight. Its definitely a book that should have some follow up discussion. Porter's written a story that will change a reader.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your teacher will thank you for the tip about Imani, January 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Imani All Mine (Hardcover)

Tell your teacher about Imani-- believe me, he or she will thank you. My college students loved Imani: the whites were touched, fascinated, the black students said it was real; but beyond that, not since THE CATCHER IN THE RYE has there been so moving a story about an adolescent facing a spiritual wasteland. Parallels Cornel West's comments on nihilism in The Future of the Race. You're no more expected to blindly approve of everything Tasha does than you are of Holden Caulfield, but both are unforgettable. Paired well with THE GRAPES OF WRATH, another novel of humanization that's a great read. That you have to put Porter in the same company as Salinger and Steinbeck is the highest praise.