Summary:
The story begins by Precious, the main character, explaining how she constantly got kept back in school and how she is pregnant with her second child. She then moves into what it’s like for her while she’s in her math class with Mr. Wicher. How she sits in the back of the room and usually doesn’t speak but yells at anyone who interrupts the class. She was sitting in class like any other day until Mrs. Lichenstein pulls her into her office. She asks Precious if she is pregnant with her second child and how old is she. When she finds out that Precious is sixteen with her second child she tells her that she needs to have a conference with her mother. Precious makes up an excuse that her mother is busy and Mrs. Lichenstein tells her that it leaves her no excuse but to suspend her. This outrages Precious and she jumps over the desk to fight her principal while she screams out security but she just leaves. Later on that night she goes home and is yelled at fiercely by her mom while she makes her dinner and is forced to eat it with her. Mrs. Lichenstein stops by and apologizes for what she had to do but tells Precious about an alternative school by the name of Each One Teach One. This make Precious’s mother go insane that a white woman is ringing her bell and that Precious needs to get on welfare and quit trying to get an education. The next day Precious goes and takes the test to get her G.E.D but before she does that she needs to work on her reading and writing because she scored low on the test. On her first day of school she meets her new teacher by the name of Ms. Rain along with five other girls. They go around and introduce who they are and they are there. This is hard for Precious because this was her first time ever sitting at the front of the classroom and the girls there are nice for her. They start by saying and writing out the alphabet. Ms. Rain tells them they will need to write in their notebooks everyday and she will be expecting them to recite the alphabet the next time they meet.
Quote:
“The longest journey begins with a single step.”
Reflection:
It’s fairly hard for me to comprehend why should anyone have to this they way? Why does her mother like she’s someone that has done something so cruel to her? How does she still move on with her life after it all? The questions are endless but with quotes like the one above, it helps to carry one. I don’t know what to say but I’m just left with questions because it doesn’t seem real that any of this really happens.
