After reading about one-third of “Lullabies for Little Criminals” by Heather O’Neil, I can definitely say that this book has shocked me. This book is about a 12-year old girl named, Baby, who lives with her father, Jules. Baby doesn't live an average teenage life. While reading the first couple pages of the book, I thought that I could really connect with Baby, but after reading a bit more about her lifestyle I can’t even image how Baby’s life would be. Baby’s lifestyle is exposed to many inappropriate things for her age. She knows a lot of drugs and more specially heroin. Her 26 year old father is a heroin addict, which is why they are not that financially stable. When I was 12, I didn't even know what heroine was or how it was used. I used …show more content…
to play outside every day with my friends.
Baby doesn't get to experience the lifestyle of a 12-year old, which is why she is a very mature and independent person. Even though Baby is surrounded in a lifestyle with drugs, she does an effective job staying away from drugs and not getting caught into it. Imagining the lifestyle that Baby lives in right now makes me conclude that she won't have a very bright future. Due to Jules heroin addict, they are very financially unstable. He isn't able to support Baby nor himself. This means that Baby will have a very hard time with University expenses because her father has nothing saved up for her. This makes me predict that in the short run, Baby and Jules will be separated. When you only have one parent, it is very important to keep a strong bond with them as relationships can fade away very easily. Parents are who we look up to, they are our role models. My dad is who I look up to, he is the …show more content…
one who taught me the wrongs and rights in life. They support and protect us as we grow up and face challenges. Unfortunately, Baby doesn't have the same back support. Baby wants to be protected by her dad, but he is too busy with drugs, as Baby states, “I took the cigarette out of his hand and put it in a glass next to my bed. He was hot as hell, but I liked him there right next to me, stoned and not going anywhere. I felt protected and perfect” (O’Neil, 22) This shows how connected she is with drugs in her daily life. Which might also contribute to why she started doing “magic mushrooms”. She is very young and doesn't know the long term after effect of drugs, if she looks up to her dad, then she will take the wrong path. I feel bad for Baby, she doesn't have someone there for her to raise her up and show her reality, like how I do. In the other hand, I feel very lucky to have such supportive parents by my side. The importance of having your families support is very key when growing up because you know that they will be with you no matter what. While reading this book, I felt that Heather O’Neil did a very effective job keeping everything very detailed.
This helped develop many images. From the characteristics of Baby, I imagine her as someone who is not put together. Baby is a skinny girl who wears baggy clothes and has her hair up in a messy bun. Since they are financially unstable I image their apartment to be small, cramped with smelly stained carpet and walls. Since Jules is too busy with his drugs and Baby is only 12, the house must be very dirty and not sanitized because there is no one to look after
it. Looking at the story line, Jules and his girlfriend had Baby at the age of 15. Babies are usually born when a couple is in a stable financial state and have been married or are dating. In this case it was neither of that, which means that Baby was actually a mistake. She wasn't supposed to be born and now Jules has to take care of her by himself. Jules must be very tired of Baby because after his girlfriend’s death, he has had to take the full responsibility of rising Baby. It is very hard for Jules to take care of Baby with his heroin addict, which is why I think he gave up. But there might also be another reason. After filling in the gaps, I think that Jules might have contributed in the death of his girlfriend and now he doesn't care about Babies lifestyles no more. Having a child at a young age is not easy, which is why most couples have them after they are married. I’ve heard many stories about teen pregnancies and it makes me feel bad for the child, as he has to be raised in a very unstable situation. This book mostly evolves around a very modern lifestyle. Teen pregnancies and the overuse of drugs have been a very recent trend in society. Thus makes me think that the author might have experienced or knows something who has experienced teenage pregnancy and the over use of drugs. Through this book she shows how hard it is to live a life as a teenage parent and how it isn't the right thing. I don't want to make many final conclusions, but I feel sympathy for all teen parents. I agree with the author teenage pregnancies are not the right, teenagers are supposed to live their teen life not take care of a child.
Baby is an innocent young twelve-year-old, who undergoes negative changes throughout the novel. O’Neill was inspired to write Lullabies for Little Criminals because she experienced how quickly the border between adulthood and childhood could be erased by taking in
“Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction” is a book about a mother Libby Cataldi who struggles with her oldest son
In the third section of the novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, there are five major points that include the introduction of a new influential character that dynamically changes the protagonist, and examples of allusions, irony, and another major theme in the novel. The protagonist realizes that she is a prostitute and that she changed to an extent that she cannot stay further from her father anymore. Throughout the section, Baby’s character and personality develop as she slowly transitions into an adult. For example, she starts referring to readers as “little kids” randomly in the middle of a chapter when she is a little kid herself. In addition, Baby sings the song “Desperado,” a popular French song at the end of each chapter, which emphasizes
“Crank” by Ellen Hopkins tells the story of a teenage girl, modeled after her own daughter, who becomes addicted methamphetamine, known on the streets as “crank”. The story follows Kristina's downward spiral as she attempts to feed her addiction and copes with the consequences of the decisions she makes.
This shows how far Alice was trying to go in order to get a hold of some drugs. She was so hooked on her drugs that she would do whatever it takes.... ... middle of paper ... ... It shows how far teenagers will go to get drugs, the consequences of drugs, and what life is like once you are hooked onto drugs. This is a book that many teenagers should read before getting involved in any type of substance.
Baby narrates her story through her naïve, innocent child voice. She serves as a filter for all the events happening in her life, what the narrator does not know or does not comprehend cannot be explained to the readers. However, readers have reason not to trust what she is telling them because of her unreliability. Throughout the beginning of the novel we see Baby’s harsh exposure to drugs and hurt. Jules raised her in an unstable environment because of his constant drug abuse. However, the narrator uses flowery language to downplay the cruel reality of her Montreal street life. “… for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin” (10). We immediately see as we continue reading that Baby thinks the way she has been living her life is completely normal, however, we as readers understand that her life is in fact worse then she narrates. Baby knows about the impermanent nature of her domestic security, however, she repeatedly attempts to create a sense of home each time her and Jules move to another apartm...
The spacious, sunlit room has yellow wallpaper with a hideous, chaotic pattern that is stripped in multiple places. The bed is bolted to the ground and the windows are closed. Jane despises the space and its wallpaper, but John refuses to change rooms, arguing that the nursery is best-suited for her recovery. Because the two characters, Emily and Jane, are forced to become isolated, they turn for the worst. Isolation made the two become psychotic.
Canada’s Reads awards are books that can “change perspectives, challenge stereotypes and illuminate issues” (CBCBooks). Lullabies For Little Criminals, a novel written by Heather O’Neill, won this award. William Faulkner stated on receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, “the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the heart in conflict with itself…The writer’s duty is to write about these things….” Lullabies For Little Criminals definitely portrays these conflicts that young authors have forgotten through Baby’s, a thirteen-year-old girl, first hand view into a world where the innocence of childhood is stripped away, a world void of family, a world of manipulative love.
Messigner D.S., Bauer R.C., Das A., Seifer R., Lester B.M., Laquasse L.L. et al. (2004). Maternal lifestyle study: Cognitive, motor and behavioral outcomes of cocaine-exposed and opiate-exposed infants through three years of age. Society for Pediatric Research, 1-3, 5, 6.
Some people argue that the drug users aren’t the heroin victims. One writer notes, 'The parents of the user who steals from them, abuses them, physically, emotionally and mentally, the siblings who suffer the loss of care and love but who also get abused and used by the user, the kids of the user who learn that the parent's desire for smack is greater than the desire to be a parent,' are the real heroin victims (Fitzgerald, 2000). This problem therefore effects not only the user but the society living around them as well.
Young adults are losing their childhood innocence; replacing it with the world of adulthood. The most reoccurring theme throughout the book, Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill is the loss of innocence. The protagonist named Baby, lives with her father, Jules who is a heroin addict. Jules and Baby are constantly moving to different apartments in Montreal, where Baby is exposed to drugs, juvenile detention and forced into prostitution by her pimp. Baby experiences many obstacles in her life at the age of thirteen because she doesn’t have a father that loves her enough to guide her into the right path of life. Therefore it did not take long for Baby to lose her innocence.
Baby’s first experience that causes her to lose her innocence when she first is introduced to the world of drugs. Baby’s father is a heroin addict, and has been since her birth. Being around him and his friends doing drugs and finding drugs on the kitchen table made her feel tempted to try them. For only being 13 years old, Baby knew a lot about drugs, and said it was a matter of time until she started doing drugs herself. Baby admitted to knowing a lot about drugs by saying “ …for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin.”(O’Neill, 10). This shows the amount of time that Baby has spent around drugs by living with a heroin addict and living in a community where doing drugs is normal. Since Baby lives in a big city like Montreal, there are certain places that are poor like in Toronto, there are the poor parts like Scarborough, where crime and drug rates are high, this is exactly what Baby goes through while living in this poor area in Montreal. In a marxist criticism point of view, it shows how drugs and alcohol abuse happen in parts of the city where people make less income and haven't had a goal in life and that's what Babys town is like, having people who never had an education and had people in their life who weren't good influences. Her friend Xavier lives in a different part of
The book I have read is “Lullabies for Little Criminals” by Heather O’Neill. The poster I have created accurately depicts the story very well because of the visuals and the quotes. There is a girl sitting by herself, observing a city. The girl represents the main protagonist in this story named “Baby”. She is a curious young girl who wants to fit in with society. Baby is pushed around by her peers and has never felt welcomed. Pressure of all sorts take over young girls like her and they believe in order to be accepted and included by peers and society, they must make changes to themselves, as she starts to abuse drugs and alcohol. The picture I have chosen for my movie poster represents Baby because for the most part of her life, she has felt
Do you ever feel you have everything under control when you really don’t? That’s Kristina Georgia Snow’s memo about meth, as her journey is followed through the Crank series. Crank is about a innocent, 17 year old girl named Kristina, who is on her way to graduating early when she has to go spend one month in the summer with her estranged father. While visiting her father, she falls in love and tries meth for the first time. The book follows her experience being addicted to the “monster” and the consequences that come with it such as hurting her friends and loved ones. The book ends with the teen becoming pregnant due to a product of rape. Glass, the second book in the series, starts off with Kristina, also known by her "alter ego" Bree, has the baby. She names her baby Hunter Seth. Kristina being clean during her pregnancy, quickly relapses and her life slowly starts to crumble around her. Ellen Hopkins own experience dealing with her daughter’s meth addiction influenced her theme of a life spiraling out of control shown through character, style and imagery in Glass.
We are all affected by crime, whether we are a direct victim, a family member or a friend of a victim. It can interfere with your daily life, your personal sense of safety and your ability to trust others.