Pick of the Day: Uses for Boys (Audio)

Uses for Boys. By Erica Lorraine Scheidt. 4 CDs. 4:18 hrs. Brilliance Audio. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4692-4973-5. $69.97.
Gr 10 Up–Sixteen-year-old Anna’s earliest memories begin at age seven during the “tell-me-again” times. While snuggled against her mother, she listened to stories about how her mother always wanted a little girl. “Now I have everything,” she would whisper. A year later, the stories stopped and a wave of step-fathers began. Left to her own devices, Anna began to tell herself stories: “I had no mother. I had no father.” Fighting loneliness as a teenager, she finds temporary comfort in the arms of boys, earning the title of slut from her peers. Anna becomes a pregnant dropout, finds a minimum wage job, and moves in with her current boyfriend. One morning a “revelation” occurs. She is enough; she can write her own stories. No more replaying her mother’s stories or writing about the smiling families in pictures torn from magazines and taped to her walls. Anna’s story, stumbling yet steadfast, begins. She gets an abortion and rents an apartment, but still feels invisible behind the counter making cappuccinos for ladies with long, painted nails. Then Sam arrives—and Anna is anything but invisible. His family eats, banters, and laughs together. Sam is anything but temporary. Scheidt’s haunting yet poignant and poetic story (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013) encourages girls to believe in their own importance and realize that their past does not have to dictate their future. Narrator Emily Durante beautifully captures the anguished and hopeful voice of Anna. A must-have.–Cheryl Preisendorfer,Twinsburg City Schools,OH