A Girl Named Mister

A Girl Named Mister
By Nikki Grimes
Zondervan, 2010. 223 pages. Young Adult.

Fourteen-year-old Mister (short for M.R., which is in turn short for Mary Rudine) has promised not to have sex before marriage; however, her devotion both to church and to her promise wavers when she meets Trey. Soon, she has broken her promise and finds herself pregnant. Seeking comfort and guidance, she turns to a book of poems told from the perspective of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is dealing with an unexpected pregnancy of her own.

I thought this book was well-written, and Mister's struggle to deal with faith, temptation, guilt, and forgiveness is one that many teens and adults can relate to, even if premarital sex isn't their particular temptation. I also like how Mister turns to a Biblical character for guidance. Grimes is a good writer, and I always enjoy her work, and I appreciate the mixture of faith and religion into her fiction. This book isn't quite squeaky clean, as there's a little bit of detail about Mister's increasing feelings for Trey, but their sexual encounter is not described, and there's no language. Overall, Grimes handles a difficult topic very tastefully.

AE