This is the story of Precious Jones, a sixteen year old illiterate black girl who has never been out of Harlem. She is pregnant by her own father for the second time, and kicked out of school when that pregnancy becomes obvious. Placed in an alternative teaching programme, she is urged to write down her thoughts in a book. This is Precious' diary, in which she honestly records her relationships and her life. Told with tremendous power, vitality and wit; this is an uncompromising and hugely enjoyable novel.

Precious

Sapphire

Literature & Fiction

Vintage Books USA

From the bestselling author of Push, a story of survival and awakening—and one young man’s remarkable strengthThe Kid brings us deep into the interior life of Abdul Jones, son of Sapphire’s unforgettable heroine, Precious. Left alone by his mother’s death to navigate in a world where love and hate sometimes hideously masquerade, forced to confront unspeakable violence, his history, and the dark corners of his own heart, Abdul claws his way toward adulthood. In a generational story that moves with the speed of thought from a Mississippi dirt farm to Harlem in its heyday, from a troubled Catholic orphanage to downtown artists’ lofts, The Kid is a soaring tale of body and spirit, rooted in the hungers of flesh and of the soul.

The Kid: A Novel

United States

Penguin Publishing Group

The Kid

Hamish Hamilton

Fifteen years after the publication of Push, one year after the  Academy Award-winning film adaptation, Sapphire gives voice to  Precious's son, Abdul. In The Kid bestselling author Sapphire tells the electrifying  story of Abdul Jones, the son of Push's unforgettable heroine,  Precious.A story of body and spirit, rooted in the hungers of flesh and of  the soul, The Kid brings us deep into the interior life of Abdul  Jones. We meet him at age nine, on the day of his mother's funeral.  Left alone to navigate a world in which love and hate sometimes  hideously masquerade, forced to confront unspeakable violence, his  history, and the dark corners of his own heart, Abdul claws his way  toward adulthood and toward an identity he can stand behind.In a generational story that moves with the speed of thought from a  Mississippi dirt farm to Harlem in its heyday; from a troubled Catholic  orphanage to downtown artist's lofts, The Kid tells of a twenty- first-century young man's fight to find a way toward the future. A  testament to the ferocity of the human spirit and the deep nourishing  power of love and of art, The Kid chronicles a young man about  to take flight. In the intimate, terrifying, and deeply alive story of  Abdul's journey, we are witness to an artist's birth by fire.

Literary

Penguin

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Includes a Reading Group Guide Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as she learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it truly her own for the first time.

Precious (Push Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage Contemporaries)

Vintage

An electrifying first novel that shocks by its language, its circumstances, and its brutal honesty, Push recounts a young black street-girl's horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears and the world begins to open up for her when a courageous, determined teacher bullies, cajoles, and inspires her to learn to read, to define her own feelings and set them down in a diary. From the Hardcover edition.

Random House Audio |

Push

Random House Value Publishing

Product Description 
A new 25th anniversary edition of the instant classic that inspired the major motion picture and Sundance Film Festival winner Precious: Based on the Novel 'PUSH' by Sapphire, whose power and ferocity influenced a generation of writers.\nPrecious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as she learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it truly her own for the first time. 
 Review 
“Affecting and impassioned . . . sails on the strength of pure, stirring feeling.”\n—The New York Times Book Review\n“A horrific, hope-filled story [that is] brilliant, blunt, merciless.”\n—Newsday\n“Brutal, redemptive . . . you just can’t take your eyes off Precious Jones.”\n—Newsweek 
 About the Author 
Sapphire is the author of two books of poetry, 
American Dreams and 
Black Wings & Blind Angels, and the 
New York Times bestselling novel 
The Kid. She lives and works in New York City. 
 Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 
Chapter I\nI was left back when I was twelve because I had a baby for my fahver. That was in 1983. I was out of school for a year. This gonna be my second baby. My daughter got Down Sinder. She’s retarded. I had got left back in the second grade too, when I was seven, ’cause I couldn’t read (and I still peed on myself). I should be in the eleventh grade, getting ready to go into the twelf’ grade so I can gone ’n graduate. But I’m not. I’m in the ninfe grade.\nI got suspended from school ’cause I’m pregnant which I don’t think is fair. I ain’ did nothin’!\nMy name is Claireece Precious Jones. I don’t know why I’m telling you that. Guess ’cause I don’t know how far I’m gonna go with this story, or whether it’s even a story or why I’m talkin’; whether I’m gonna start from the beginning or right from here or two weeks from now. Two weeks from now? Sure you can do anything when you talking or writing, it’s not like living when you can only do what you doing. Some people tell a story ’n it don’t make no sense or be true. But I’m gonna try to make sense and tell the truth, else what’s the fucking use? Ain’ enough lies and shit out there already?\nSo, OK, it’s Thursday, September twenty-four 1987 and I’m walking down the hall. I look good, smell good—fresh, clean. It’s hot but I do not take off my leather jacket even though it’s hot, it might get stolen or lost. Indian summer, Mr Wicher say. I don’t know why he call it that. What he mean is, it’s hot, 90 degrees, like summer days. And there is no, none, I mean none, air conditioning in this mutherfucking building. The building I’m talking about is, of course, I.S. 146 on 134th Street between Lenox Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Jr Blvd. I am walking down the hall from homeroom to first period maff. Why they put some shit like maff first period I do not know. Maybe to gone ’n git it over with. I actually don’t mind maff as much as I had thought I would. I jus’ fall in Mr Wicher’s class sit down. We don’t have assigned seats in Mr Wicher’s class, we can sit anywhere we want. I sit in the same seat everyday, in the back, last row, next to the door. Even though I know that back door be locked. I don’t say nuffin’ to him. He don’t say nuffin’ to me, now. First day he say, “Class turn the book pages to page 122 please.” I don’t move. He say, “Miss Jones, I said turn the book pages to page 122.” I say, “Mutherfucker I ain’t deaf!” The whole class laugh. He turn red. He slam his han’ down on the book and say, “Try to have some discipline.” He a skinny little white man about five feets four inches. A peckerwood as my mother would say. I look at him ’n say, “I can slam too. You wann

Push (Revised) (Vintage Contemporaries)

The Kid (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Turtleback

An electrifying first novel that shocks by its language, its circumstances, and its brutal honesty, Push recounts a young black street-girl's horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears and the world begins to open up for her when a courageous, determined teacher bullies, cajoles, and inspires her to learn to read, to define her own feelings and set them down in a diary.

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Alfred.A. Knopf

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sapphire. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sapphire

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sapphire. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Precious

The Kid: A Novel

The Kid

The Kid

Precious (Push Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage Contemporaries)

Precious

Push

Push (Revised) (Vintage Contemporaries)

The Kid (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Push