Adventures In Underland

The girl has spent the first part of her childhood with two loving but unstable parents. The inevitable happens all at once and the girl spends the rest of her childhood in her Mom's old Brooklyn neighborhood that's in the middle of a mafia power struggle. The girl makes friends with kids in situations as bad as, or more disturbing than hers. It's a historical novel that chronicles the events that have led to the present state of affairs in the inner cities. Riots, blackouts, fires, drugs, sexual predation of unprotected minors, inequities in schools, and literally institutional racism through personal experience and much dry humor.

-- N. Marie McCormick