Jamaica and Me: The Story of an Unusual Friendship - Tapa dura

The author details her relationship with a young girl tormented by a past that includes a lost family, homelessness, and an indifferent system, and is forced to confront both the child's self-destructiveness and the limits of her own devotion

f eight, Jamaica has already--    literally--lost her mother (she never knew her     father), has slept in New York subway tunnels, and now lives in a welfare
hospital.
Linda Atkins, who volunteers at the hospital, feels especially drawn to the loner Jamaica--"a skinny, tired, raggedy child with red-rimmed, pitch-black eyes that glared
out from angry slits"--and begins to take her on outings, at first to neighborhood parks and then for weekend visits at home. There are good times--Linda teaches the
determined, enthusiastic Jamaica to ride a bike and helps her pick out a Halloween mask--but the bad times threaten to prevail: Jamaica often lies, steals from Linda's
house, and has outbursts of violence.
        Linda tries to maintain her friendship with Jamaica through these difficulties and also through those she encounters in the child welfare system: indifferent
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