BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cauchon, Dennis. “On the Streets and in School:
Two Views of Growing Up Black.” USA Today, 10
March 1994, p. 6D.
Gadler, Erica. “The Culture of Street Violence, by
a Survivor.” At Random 3, no. 1 (Winter 1994):
44–49.
Wilfred D. Samuels
McDonald, Janet (1953– )
A writer of young adult fiction and an international
attorney who lives in Paris, Janet McDonald grew
up in the Farragut Houses public housing project
of Brooklyn, New York. She is one of seven chil-
dren born to William McDonald, a World War II
veteran who moved to New York to escape south-
ern racism, and Florence McDonald, a domestic
engineer. She briefly attended Erasmus in Brook-
lyn and the Harlem Prep School before receiving a
scholarship to Vassar in 1973 to major in French.
While there she was not prepared for the vast dif-
ferences from her world in the Brooklyn projects,
and she began using heroin. After dropping out of
Vassar she returned and spent her junior year in
Paris, France, and it was there that Janet felt free
and like “just another American.” She later earned
a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia Uni-
versity and a law degree at New York University.
Writing since the age of nine or 10, McDon-
ald admits she likes to write mostly about teenage
girls because not enough books have been writ-
ten to address their problems. McDonald is the
author of the award-winning memoir Project Girl
(1999), a powerful, brutally honest, and troubling
account of her personal struggle of trials, failures,
and comebacks after coming to terms with her
bouts of depression, drug abuse, arrest for arson,
rape, and a nervous breakdown. With its realis-
tic street dialogue and raps, McDonald’s book,
according to Sara Ivory of the New York Times,
shows “the strength of her perseverance and her
spirit in her willingness to relive her traumas by
writing about them” (17). Time’s Romesh Ratne-
sar remarks that McDonald “writes with lucid-
ity and drama” but noted that “her cynicism...
become[s] toxic” (81).
Following Project Girl, McDonald turned to a
younger audience, addressing the themes of de-
termination, courage, loyalty, familial love, and
friendship. She published the first of her award-
winning urban trilogy, Spellbound (2001), which
was praised for the authenticity and credibility of
her character and their voices, as well as the pre-
sentation of the house in which they live. Center-
ing on 16-year-old Raven Jefferson and her best
girlfriend, Aisha Ingram, both high school drop-
outs, unwed mothers, and virtually unemployable
teens, the novel offers hope. Raven, unlike Aisha,
is not content to rely on “the system” for support
and is motivated to enter a spelling bee that will
afford her an opportunity to enter a college pre-
paratory program and to attend college on a full
scholarship.
The second novel, Chill Wind (2001), the win-
ner of the 2003 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe
New Talent Award, traces the life of the bullish
yet naive 19-year-old high school dropout, Aisha
Ingram, who, unlike in the first novel, tries to fig-
ure out ways to support herself and her two young
children in New York once her welfare has ended
and she must enter the workplace or “get kicked
to the curb.” Determined not to accept any of the
“slave jobs” she has been offered, she stops at noth-
ing to succeed. Among McDonald’s successes in
this novel is the way she presents Aisha’s authen-
tic voice and unique perspective. Janet Gillen, in
a review in School Library Journal, also notes that
McDonald’s “language is real and believable and
invokes life in an urban setting” (173).
Twists and Turns (2003), the third novel in the
trilogy, examines the lives of two Brooklyn teen-
agers, Keeba and Teesha Washington. The recent
high school graduates learn with the assistance of
family and friends a number of life’s important
lessons, including that anything is possible if a
person believes in herself. Reviewer Sharon Mor-
rison notes that the main characters “exhibit both
strengths and considerable vulnerability” (217).
Even though McDonald’s latest novel, Brother
Hood (2004), does not have a young girl as itsMcDonald, Janet 343