The Diary of Latoya Hunter: My First Year in Junior High

Through the year, the following things happened to twelve-year-old Latoya Hunter: She thrived at school; her urge for independence grew, and she had continual conflicts with her mother about it; she experienced the joy and pangs of her first love; she was terrifyingly propositioned on the street near her apartment; she witnessed the shooting of a neighbor; her unmarried sister gave birth to a boy; she visited her birthplace, Jamaica, during a vacation that left her frustrated and unhappy. She became a year older.
Here are Latoya's innermost thoughts, recorded in her diary as the events happened. As she experiences her first year at JHS 80 in the Bronx, these are described in the simple but luminous prose of an intelligent, sensitive, shy, and deeply feeling young girl. Her story is, of course, typical of girls like her, and it is also unique. It is affirmative, inspiring, moving, human, real.