Product Description

Baby is twelve years old. Her mother died not long after she was born and she lives in a string of seedy flats in Montreal's red light district with her father Jules, who takes better care of his heroin addiction than he does of his daughter. Jules is an intermittent presence and a constant source of chaos in Baby's life - the turmoil he brings with him and the wreckage he leaves in his wake. Baby finds herself constantly re-adjusting to new situations, new foster homes, new places, new people, all the while longing for stability and a 'normal' life. But Baby has a gift - the ability to find the good in people, a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap. She is bright, smart, funny and observant about life on the dirty streets of a city and wise enough to realise salvation rests in her own hands.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45457 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Review
O'Neill's vivid prose owes a debt to Donna Tartt's The Little Friend... Baby's precocious introspection feels pitch perfect... Tear-jerkingly effective - Publishers' WeeklyA remarkable novel that could turn out to be huge... the very rich descriptions of a tumultuous young life and emotional reaction to each new situation add up to a cracking good read - Publishing New...dreamy prose...Baby's unique voice and the glimmer of hope provided by her intelligence and imaginative spirit live on in the mind long after you have closed the book - Waterstones Books QuarterlyFrom feisty little Scout of To Kill a Mockingbird to Sissy Spacek's blank-eyed Holly in the film Badlands, Heather O'Neill draws on the annals of knowing child narrators to shape Baby's shabby, scrappy scrabble from broken home to detention centre to pimp's lap and back again. Scabrous humour and brutal insight fairly jolt each episode into life - The Observer

Publishing News
A remarkable novel that could turn out to be huge...a cracking good read

Independent
...vivid and poignant...a deeply moving and troubling novel

Customer Reviews

Best book of the year
Written in the voice of a child, this book is about the highs and lows of being cared for by her young heroin addict father. The book sets a new standard in writing about childhood trauma. It perfectly captures the confused, non-judgemental thought process of a young girl as she grows up in a community of drug-pushers, bums, pimps and other inadequates. Inexorably, Baby mutates from an innocent, vulnerable child into a whore and heroin user as she develops her own methods to answer her need to feel nurtured. The strength of the narrative is that from the beginning to end, it is told with a child's perspective. I wanted to crawl into the book and comfort her myself. Heather O'Neil is an outstanding talent. Some of the writing was so poignant, I found myself writing out passages to remember. Even the title makes me want to weep!

Lullabies for Little Criminals
As soon as I picked up this novel, I found it difficult to put it down - there were a few tears before I finally did! The reader approaches the story through the eyes of Baby, a little girl forced to grow up too quickly when her mother dies, leaving her teenage heroin-addict father responsible for her upbringing. These circumstances might have signalled doom for any other child, but Baby does well to handle the upheaval she constantly faces, her intelligence leading her to the conclusion that she can only rely on herself. Thoroughly involving and perfect for a summer read!

Excellent Book
I couldn't put this book down. And when I wasn't reading it I was constantly thinking about what I read and what was going to happen next. Sad, funny, deeply moving and graphic. I enjoyed every word written by Heather O'Neill.