Not a Bedtime Story

Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals is a book that I somehow ended up ignoring for a year even though every reader I know had recommended it to me at some point or another.

I am likely preaching to the choir, but if you haven't read this novel yet, you need to go out and buy it right now.

Lullabies is the story of 12-year old Baby, a young Montrealer who is being raised by her twenty-something junkie dad. Baby is tender and brave and fascinated by the antics of the characters in her hood. But as she shifts unwillingly into adolescence, her relationship with her father is redefined and she is confronted by ever-increasing violence.

O'Neill's descriptions are some of the most original and inspiring perspectives on the everyday. She also so wholly and completely inhabits the character Baby that it is only a matter of pages before I was completely enthralled by this special child's universe.

This story is not for the faint of heart, as the plot takes dark and depressing dips, but the reward is the company of one of contemporary literature's most charming and compelling characters.