Halley's junior year of high school includes the death of her best friend Scarlett's boyfriend, the discovery that Scarlett is pregnant, and Halley's own first serious relationship.
Discusses the reasons some poor single mothers have children before focusing on marriage, despite the economic and societal risks, based on discussions with 162 low-income women.
Seventeen-year-old Terry, single and pregnant, decides to keep a journal to help herself come to terms with an unhappy homelife and poor self-image as she tries to decide whether or not to keep her baby.
Thirteen-year-old Freedom who, along with her stepbrother, is being raised by an embittered alcoholic mother, longs to know who her father is and why his identity has always been a secret.
Seventeen years old and pregnant, Anne lives with other unwed mothers in a group home in rural Texas where she learns to be herself before giving her child up for adoption.
Nineteen-year-old Miriam, imprisoned in Siberia after inadvertently involving herself with revolutionaries in 1911 Kiev, tells the story of her turbulent life in a Jewish village, writing journal entries to the daughter she gave up at birth.
