Blog post number 4- Lullabies for little criminals

I chose to write this blog post from the reader response theory lens. I currently find this novel extremely interesting. As a reader I feel a connection with the main character Baby. In the novel she is now 13 years old. She has done drugs, drank alcohol, and had sex with multiple grown men. She is much too young to be doing any of these things. In other stories or movies children at the age of 12-13 are just being introduced to adult hood but they are still children. Baby however never really had a childhood at all. She grew up with a drug addict and the household couldn’t afford many things so she didn’t have nice toys or clothes. She also didn’t have many friends. When reading this story I picture Baby as a pretty young girl who is still growing and learning immensely as a person. At the point that I am at in this book Baby is a prostitute. Her "boyfriend" Alphonse is a pimp. She has been to a detention center and been expelled from her old school. When reading this I have no respect for her father Jules. He hasn’t been raising her properly and when he found out she was doing bad things he got her in trouble with the police instead of helping her, which just flipped her world around once again. Baby should be able to have nice friends and bring them home without her father making a scene. She should also be able to have sexual relations with the people she wants and only them. Baby got a real boyfriend named Xavier and really fell for him. She was finally being treated with true respect and love and was able to act like a kid for once without being ridiculed. It was difficult to theoretically watch Baby get herself into so much trouble. I want her to live with someone who will treat her properly and I want her to have good friends who can accept her kind boyfriend. Reading this book keeps me on my feet. I never know what path Baby will take but I hope she will find a good path in the end. She deserves to be cared for like a child and not have to raise herself. No matter what Baby does I still view her as a sweet, good child in my mind. She is troubled but she isn’t bad. Many people will read this novel in a different way and picture the characters differently but I think Baby needs to live with new people and ditch her horrible relationship with Alphonse and focus on her happy relationship with Xavier. This way she may drop her bad habits and be on a better path. I feel bad for Baby's character for everything she’s had to go through in her young life and I hope that something happens later on that makes up for all her hardships.