Push 1-100

This book is about Precious Jones, a sixteen year old from Harlem. She is sexually abused by her father, and physically abused by her mother. When she was twelve years old, she had her father's child, and now, at age sixteen, she's pregnant with his child again. Her first child, Mongo, has Downs Syndrome and lives with Precious' grandma. Precious goes to a Harlem junior high school, even though she's old enough to be a junior, because she can't read, write, or even comprehend numbers. After an incident in math class where she cussed out the teacher, she was expelled from school. Her school guidance counselor, Mrs. Lichenstein, comes to her house and suggests that she goes to an alternative school, "Each One Teach One". The next Monday, Precious goes to her new alternative school. Her teacher at the new school is Ms. Rain. She also has several other girls in her class that are illiterate and all have problems at home as bad as she does. She learns the alphabet and how to count. Ms. Rain has the students write in a journal, and then she writes back to them. Precious decides she really likes writing, and she even writes some poems. Then, half way through the school year, she has her second child by her father, and names him Abdul. After her mother has a particularly violent night, Precious can't deal with the abuse anymore, so she runs away with Abdul and goes to a halfway house. Her mom comes to see her at the halfway house, and tells her that her father had AIDS, so she should probably get tested. Also, she said that her father had died. She gets tested, and it turns out she is HIV positive.