Following the success of her debut novel, Push, which was adapted into the Oscar-winning 2009 movie Precious, the book’s author Sapphire has published a sequel, The Kid (Penguin Press), released yesterday. The story begins with the death of Precious, and follows the difficult life of her son Abdul Jones into his teens.

USA Today‘s Bob Minzesheimer says the new book, which “…explores the shame of the foster home system and why more black kids like Abdul aren’t adopted” is “…more ambitious”  than the first book.

Reviewers agree that Abdul’s life is harrowing; Carolyn Kellogg in the Kansas City Star, calls it “…an accomplished work of art, but it is a grueling story, one whose depictions of brutality and desire may be too challenging for some readers.” Michiko Kakutani in yesterday’s NYT takes a more dim view, “What is meant to be provocatively obscene in this novel, however, often feels merely willfully perverse, just as what is meant to be shocking often feels like sensationalistic contrivance.” People gives it 3.5 of 4 stars in the 7/11 issue.

The author was interviewed by USA Today at NYPL’s Harlem branch, at the beginning of her 17-city book tour. Below is the video of the interview that accompanies the story on the USA Today Web site:

Library holds are light, averaging 1:1 in the libraries we checked, on modest ordering.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 at 9:15 am and is filed under 2011 -- Summer, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.