Rating: 
Summary: I understand why this book received the Printz Award
Review: This book, The First Part Last, is the American Library Association's choice for the 2004 Printz Award for Young Adult literature. On reading it, I can see why. It is beautifully written, with two timelines interwoven together. Usually this would be jarring, but Johnson moves from "then" and "now" seamlessly so what happened "then" seems very much apart of "now." "Now" being 16-year old Bobby's attempt to be responsible and raise his baby Feather without burdening his parents. Johnson makes her readers feel what it is like to have a new human being who is so dependent and so loving. She also does a good job of showing what Bobby has lost, what growing he still needs to do. He isn't sleeping, he is becoming different from his friends because they aren't fathers, he isn't getting time to paint or think or doing anything to heal himself, and he does have healing to do. And in this process, he gains a new understanding of his own parents. My favorite moment of the book happens shortly before Bobby moves out of his mother's apartment. He overhears his mother say to the baby "Take care of him for me." My reason for giving The First Part Last a four rather than a five rating was the ending. The ending was satisfying, but I felt like I didn't know enough about what he had decided to do and where his life and Feather's would go next. I didn't know this when I started reading this book, but this is just one in a group of books that Johnson has written about the same family. My problem was that I hadn't read the book "Heaven." So, my two cents is read "Heaven" first and you will love this book.
Rating: 
Summary: In My opinion
Review: This is a great book it made me want to cry it was a touching story. What i liked most was how it kept you alert because it switches from the past to the present every couple pages so the book makes you think its a great book I'd suggest that anyone should read it!!
Rating:
Summary: The best book I have read in a long time!
Review: This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Angela Johnson is taking the approach that alot of writers of books on this subject dont usually take...the issue of teen pregnancy through the eyes of a teen father. The story is told by sixteen year old Bobby who has taken responsiblity for his newborn daughter. This story is emotionally charged, and by the time I was done I wanted to cry. I loved it! I definitely recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book!!
Review: This poignant, jarringly realistic account of teenage fatherhood won both the Coretta Scott King Author Award and the American Library Association's Printz Honor Book Award. It's a gritty tale of a young man who is forced to grow up all too early to raise a child. The child's mother, we later learn, is unable to help with this daunting task, which makes it all the more difficult for young Bobby.
The book is divided into episodic vignettes, simply entitled Then and Now. Nearly all of the story is told in the first person, from Bobby's perspective. In each of the chapters we meet members of one of the young people's families, nearly all of whom are directly effected by this development.
The book is not without some strong language; it is a book for young adults, not children, and the fact that Johnson doesn't edit her young characters language adds to the authenticity of this story. This book should be required reading for young adults as it will remind them that no actions can be taken without a wider consequence. But unlike academic accounts of the birds and bees, it will do so in a language that they can understand.
Rating:
Summary: Now and Then
Review: This was the first book I read about teenage pregnancy from the male perspective. This book was educational and enlightening. In reading the book I noticed how the author barely talked about the mother in the present tense. It made me wonder what she was feeling and thinking, but as I read on I understood why. When the author spoke in Bobby's voice it was very honest and poignant. I loved when Bobby realized Nia's (the mother) fate and stepped up to the plate and decided to be a single father, which is very rare in this day and age. The author also made the reader realize what a single mother goes through on a day to day basis. Very interesting book, I am going to pass this one off to my son's also. Later...
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: Through sets of chapters reverting from "then" to "now", Angela Johnson tells the story of Bobby and his baby Feather. Bobby is 16 and when his girlfriend Nia tells him she's pregnant, his world changes dramatically. Because of the unique way this single story is split into two time periods that meet at the end, you already know the ending (or so you think) but you don't know how events unfolded to get you there. From sketches of Bobby's life before Feather is born to days when he is bone weary from caring for her in the absence of her mother, this book is excellent. The perspective of a single father raising a child is fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: It should be treasured.
Review: We've all read plenty of stories about teen moms. In most of these tales, the moms are raising their babies by themselves because the dads are irresponsible, uninvolved, or just plain absent. Aren't there any good teenage dads out there?
In THE FIRST PART LAST, the story of a teen father's growing love for his baby daughter, Angela Johnson turns the tables as she revisits a character from her award-winning novel, HEAVEN. Bobby is an ambitious young man. An aspiring artist with talented parents, he is poised to graduate early from high school. But when his girlfriend Nia surprises him on his sixteenth birthday with the news of her pregnancy, Bobby's whole world turns upside down.
This brief novel alternates chapters between "then" and "now." The "then" is the story of Nia's pregnancy, as Bobby and Nia struggle to decide whether to raise their child or cave to parental pressure and give her up for adoption. The "now" is Bobby's own struggle to do the right thing for his infant daughter Feather, as a tragedy surrounding her birth has left him to care for her alone. Bobby is lucky to have a good support system, including his mother and father, his buddies, and his caring older brother. All along, Bobby's voice, which narrates the story, wavers between great love for his daughter and panic at his situation, but the emotional heart of the story never falters.
In the end, the portrayal of Bobby's relationship with his daughter is a positive one, although some critical readers might get the impression that Johnson is providing the wrong kind of role model. Not to worry. Although she does depict Bobby as a genuinely caring father, she also provides a grim picture of the not-so-rosy realities of teen parenthood, as Bobby copes with daycare dilemmas and his own insecurities: "This little thing with the perfect face and hands doing nothing but counting on me. And me wanting nothing else but to run crying into my own mom's room and have her do the whole thing."
If this novel has one fault, it is that Bobby seems so wrapped up in his daughter that he doesn't take time to dwell on his grief over Nia's fate. Bobby is a caring person who seemed to truly love his girlfriend (even heading halfway across Manhattan to satisfy her pregnancy cravings), so his lack of reflection on the loss of this relationship doesn't ring true.
Overall, though, THE FIRST PART LAST offers an all too-rare portrayal of a caring, nurturing young man, and it should be treasured as a result.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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