The First Part Last

The First Part Last

Author	Angela Johnson
Series	Heaven Trilogy
Published	2003 (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Publication place	United States
Pages	131
Awards	2004 Coretta Scott King Author Award 2004 Michael L. Printz Award
ISBN	0-689-84922-2
OCLC	50810558
LC Class	PZ7.J629 Fi 2003
Preceded by	Heaven(novel)
Followed by	Sweet, Hereafter(novel)

The First Part Last is a 2003 young adult novel by Angela Johnson and the second book in her Heaven trilogy.^[1]

Told in alternating “now” and “then” chapters, the novel follows sixteen-year-old Bobby as he cares for his infant daughter, Feather, after the baby’s mother, Nia, experiences eclampsia during childbirth and falls into a permanent coma.^[2]

Critics have noted the novel’s first-person narration style, its fragmented time structure, and its unusual focus on a Black teenage father rather than on adolescent motherhood alone.^[3][2][4] The novel became one of Johnson’s best-known works and was later singled out by Jonathan Hunt as an unusually successful book across both literary recognition and popular young adult reading lists.^[1]

Background and publication

Johnson has said that Bobby’s story began in part when she saw a teenage boy with a baby riding the subway in New York and started wondering about his life.^[1]

In a 2004 interview with Booklist, Johnson also explained that returning to Bobby after Heaven was encouraged by her editor Kevin Lewis after young readers responded strongly to the character.^[5] Johnson described writing Bobby as a “creative stretch” because it was her first time writing a male main character.^[5]

These comments place the novel within both the larger Heaven trilogy and Johnson’s character-driven method of building fiction from observed lives rather than from overt moral instruction.^[1][5]

Characters

• Bobby – Main character and Feather's father
• K-Boy – Bobby's friend
• J.L. – Bobby's friend
• Fred – Bobby's father
• Mary – Bobby's mother
• Paul – Bobby's brother
• Mr. Wilkins – Nia's father
• Mrs. Wilkins – Nia's mother
• Coco Fernandez – Bobby's neighbor
• Nia – Bobby's girl-friend and the mother of Bobby's daughter
• Nick – Paul's kid
• Nora – Paul's kid
• Feather – Bobby's baby/kid

Themes

A major theme in the novel is fatherhood, especially the idea that care, responsibility, and maturity are learned through Bobby’s relationship with Feather.^[6] Chelsea Rogers argues that the novel presents Bobby as a young Black father whose emotional growth is shaped not only by parenting, but also by the guidance of his father Fred and his older brother Paul.^[6]

Crag Hill similarly reads the book as a challenge to stereotypes about absent Black fathers, arguing that Bobby’s decision to raise Feather counters a common media image of young Black men as irresponsible parents.^[4] Taken together, these readings suggest that the novel is not only about teen pregnancy, but also about masculinity, care, and what it means for Bobby to become “a good man.”^[4][6]

Reception

Reviewers generally praised Johnson’s narrative voice and the emotional effect of Bobby’s first-person narration.^[2][7] Writing in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Neal A. Lester argued that the novel’s alternating “now” and “then” structure reinforces its central concern with how past choices shape present realities.^[3] A starred Booklist review praised the novel’s sensory detail and described Bobby as developing from a carefree teenager into a more thoughtful and responsible father.^[2] Francisca Goldsmith’s review in School Library Journal also emphasized the immediacy of Bobby’s voice and suggested that the audiobook version could work especially well in classroom discussion.^[7] Later commentary on Johnson’s career continued to highlight the novel’s wide appeal, with Jonathan Hunt describing it as both highly literary and unusually popular with young adult readers.^[1]

Uses in education

In The ALAN Review, Crag Hill argued that The First Part Last works effectively outside the English classroom as well, describing its use in a health class focused on teen pregnancy and parenting.^[4] Hill suggests that the novel is especially useful for class discussion because it addresses adolescent decision-making, parenting, and gender expectations through Bobby’s perspective.^[4]

Awards

• Coretta Scott King Award, 2004^[8]
• Michael L. Printz Award, 2004^[9]

References

External links

• Teenreads.com review Archived January 14, 2010, at the Wayback Machine