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Dustbin Baby
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Plot Summary of Dustbin Baby
"April was found in a dustbin just a few munites after she was born. No one knows who her birth parents are, and for many years she nad moved in and out of foster care. On her fourteenth birthday, she has a fight with her foster mother Marion, and on the way to school she decides to try to find out who her birth parents are.
Firstly she takes the train to her first foster mother's house, and she meets Tanya (yes, same Tanya from 'Bad Girls'!), a girl who regularly shoplifts. April then leaves and decides to visit her adoptive mother's grave. She recalls her life with the Johnson's, and how her mother killed herself after her father left for another woman. The she remembers her next home with a foster family, and how she was tormented by Pearl, a pretty girl who was terrifying to her friends, and how April pushed her down the stairs (and she broke several bones). The next house April visits is Sunnybank, a children's home for young tearaways, where she made friends with an older girl with a burgling team. She often went with them on their burglary escapades. April meets her friend (Gina), who is now training to be a social worker and has turned her life around.
After Sunnybank, April was sent to Fairleigh, a special school for problem girls, where she forms a close relationship with her history teacher, Marion. After Marion retires, they still visit each other, until Marion offers to become April's foster mother. Meanwhile, April has reached the place where she was found as a baby, and decides to phone the man who found her."
Liza Rosette, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of Dustbin Baby
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - very sensitive (sigh)
Kids growing up/acting up? Yes
Is this an adult or child's book? - Age 11-14
Age group of kid(s) in story: - grade school
Parents/lack of parents problem? - orphan story
Wild kid(s)? - committing crimes

Main Character
Gender - Female
Age: - a teen
Ethnicity/Nationality - British
How sensitive is this character? - soggy whimpering jelly muffin
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - healthy but a geeky weakling

Main Adversary
Identity: - none

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 5 ()
City? Yes
City: - London

Style
Person - mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - moderately detailed references to deaths
Amount of dialog - significantly more dialog than descript
Most similar books to Dustbin Baby
American Diaries: Zellie Blake by Kathleen Duey
Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson
Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake
Secret of the Missing Footprint by Phyllis A. Whitney


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Jacqueline Wilson Resident Scholar Profiles

 TOP SCHOLAR:
  Liza Rosette  

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