From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-Baby Mahalia is the love of her 17-year-old father's life. Her parents, Matt and Emmy, drop out of school and try to provide a home for her, but Emmy can't cope and leaves when the baby is five months old. Matt was raised by his mother and wants a different life for his daughter. When he moves back to his hometown, he's afraid that the temptation to rely on his mom to raise Mahalia will prove too strong, and he and the baby move into a rental house inhabited by a 22-year-old music student. While Matt struggles with the loss of Emmy and the stresses of taking care of a baby, he begins to realize that love will not conquer all. And while he fails at times to cope with everything, with the help of a new and an old friend, he ultimately succeeds and becomes a good man as well as a good parent. Like Margaret Bechard's Hanging on to Max (Roaring Brook, 2002), Mahalia explores a real and relatively ignored issue-the problems and emotions of a teenage father. Matt and Mahalia are winning, engaging, and genuine, as are all of the characters in this novel. It is set in contemporary New South Wales but there is much that would seem familiar to American teens. Certainly Matt's coming-of-age problems are universal. A poignant and memorable love story of a young father and his daughter.
Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, ILCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Gr. 9-12. "We'll just love it, ok?" say teenagers Matt and Emmy to their respective parents after they discover that Emmy is pregnant. Living in a small town tucked into Australia's rain forest, they await the birth of their child. A few months after Mahalia arrives, however, Emmy moves out, leaving Matt alone with the baby. Never melodramatic, Horniman's subtle, heart-wrenching story follows Matt as he tries to care for Mahalia and rebuild his life. Readers who require plenty of action may grow impatient with the quiet, layered plot and the detailed, unhurried language, which is filled with an artist's attention to color, texture, and light. But Horniman portrays a teenage father's inner life with unusual depth, from the power of first love ("When Matt was with Emmy, nothing was ordinary") to resentment ("There wasn't much fun in Matt's life") to heartbreaking choices. The physical intimacy isn't graphic, but the book is probably best suited for mature readers, who will more likely be drawn to the beautifully told depiction of deep love's unpredictable shifts and the surprising ways that strong families form.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
