THIS FULL HOUSE

The long-awaited conclusion to the trilogy begun with 1993’s Make Lemonade delivers on its promise. More than a year has passed since the events of True Believer (2001), and two summers of Summer Science have taught LaVaughn more than she ever could have learned at her underfunded inner-city school. Now she’s studying after school at WIMS: Women in Medical Science, a program created by Dr. Moore, an inner-city success story who’s returned to give poor girls the support she never had. LaVaughn works hard at WIMS, dreaming of one day becoming a nurse. But though LaVaughn is indebted to the program, she has suspicions about Dr. Moore’s history, suspicions that lead her into the conflict between what’s right and what’s necessary. In heartbreaking free-verse chapters, LaVaughn discovers that helpful adults are not perfect and that forgiveness is necessary even for the unforgivable. Despite the book’s oversimplification of religion and a conclusion that would seem pat if it were not so emotionally right, this portrayal of the dignity of poverty is quite the tearjerker. The audacity of hope, indeed. (Fiction. 13-15)