Teenage pregnancy has attracted the attention of sociologists, psychologists, social workers, teachers, politicians, taxpayers, and parents. But in the midst of gathering statistics and designing programs, few people have stopped long enough to pay close attention to the young people themselves—to try to understand who they are and what they feel about their lives. In this book, Daniel B. Frank has drawn a series of sensitive and revealing portraits of adolescents confronted with the fact of parenthood.

For two years Frank worked as a tutor at Our Place, a Family Focus center for black teenagers in Evanston, Illinois, listening to them talk about their lives, their feelings, and their private dreams. The power of this volume lies in the voices of these young people describing the pleasures as well as the shocks and bruises of thier new role.

Hope, disillusion, fortitude, loneliness: these themes occur and recur as each story unfolds. Readers will be drawn into the lives of these teenagers and will emerge with fresh insight and understanding about teenage parenthood.

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