Heart-wrenching and real, Juvie tells the story of two sisters grappling with accountability, sacrifice - and who will be there to help you after you take the fall. An unflinchingly honest, and ultimately hopeful, view of life in juvenile detention.
Heart-wrenching and real, Juvie offers an unflinching and poignant view of life in juvenile detention, and will appeal to fans of TV shows like Orange Is the New Black . Sadie Windas has always been the responsible one - she's the star player on her basketball team, she gets good grades, she dates a cute soccer player and she tries to help out at home. Not like her older sister, Carla, who leaves her three-year-old daughter, Lulu, with Aunt Sadie while she parties and gets high. But when both sisters are caught up in a drug deal - wrong place, wrong time - it falls to Sadie to confess to a crime she didn't commit to keep Carla out of jail and Lulu out of foster care. Sadie is supposed to get off with a slap on the wrist, but somehow, impossibly, gets sentenced to six months in juvie. As life as Sadie knew it disappears beyond the stark bars of her cell, her anger - at her ex -boyfriend, at Carla and at herself - fills the empty space left behind. Can Sadie forgive Carla for getting her mixed up in this mess? Can Carla straighten herself out to make a better life for Lulu and for all of them? Can Sadie survive her time in juvie with her spirit intact?
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Steve Watkins is the author of two other novels for young readers, Down Sand Mountain, winner of a Golden Kite Award, and What Comes After. Juvie was inspired and influenced by Steve's work as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) volunteer and his time spent visiting juvenile detention centres. A short-story writer and winner of a Pushcart Prize, he li
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