The intense, lyrical story of Angel, a 16-year-old prostitute, who discovers the only way to save herself is by saving someone even younger and more vulnerable than she

It all started when Angel ran away to the mall. She catches the interest of Call, who’s older than she is, and buys her nice meals, and says he loves her. Then Call asks her, as a favor, to hook up with a couple of friends of his, and then a couple more, and soon Angel finds herself walking the “Kiddy Stroll” on the corner of Hastings and Main, where her best friends turn tricks for their own pimps, and girls disappear all the time, and the authorities turn a blind eye to what’s going on.

Angel writes in her Book of Life that she longs to be a baby mom and have the home Call has promised. But the customers never stop and the home doesn’t come, and soon Angel doesn’t have the will to get away… until Call brings home a new girl, a little girl, who’s so young that even Angel understands she has to be rescued. They both need to be rescued.

How Angel fights her way out of Hastings and Main—when Call, the other girls, the cops, and even the city government are determined to make her fail—is the core of this memorable, uniquely written, and transporting book about one young woman’s stand for life and hope in the face of violence and despair. Written in unrhymed verse, Angel’s story is based on actual events in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and dedicated to the families of the women who didn’t get away.

 

Martine Leavitt is best known for her award-winning fantasy, Keturah and Lord Death (Front Street, November 2006), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. The starred Booklist review said, “The romance is intense, the writing is startling, and the story is spellbinding.” It was an ALA Best Books for Young Adults pick, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year, and was named a Top 10 Fantasy for Youth Romances and a Top 10 Women’s History Books for Youth by Booklist. A dual US/Canadian citizen, Martine is on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Alberta, Canada.