Jamaica and me

the long version

Jamaica has already - literally - lost her mother (she never knew her father), has slept in New York subway tunnels, and now lives in a welfare hospital. Linda Atkins, who volunteers at the hospital, feels especially drawn to the loner Jamaica - "a skinny, tired, raggedy child with red-rimmed, pitch-black eyes that glared out from angry slits" - and begins to take her on outings, at first to neighborhood parks and then for weekend visits at home. There are good times - Linda teaches the determined, enthusiastic Jamaica to ride a bike and helps her pick out a Halloween mask - but the bad times threaten to prevail: Jamaica often lies, steals from Linda's house, and has outbursts of violence. Jamaica and Me, the candid story of Linda Atkins's experiences with a single endangered child in New York City - a story in which she assesses her own actions and motives with as much honesty as she applies to the welfare system - sounds an alarm about the state of children in need all over this country, and it asks us to acknowledge their existence and worth and to respond to their heartbreaking predicaments.