Butterflies in May
Karen Hart
Bancroft, May 2006, $16.95
ISBN: 1890862444

High school senior Ali Parker has always been careful about sex, but she has never been in love before. Now a seventeen-year old and applying to nearby Northeastern, she has met her soul mate Pratt Institute bound Matt Ryan, a talented artist. Since Matt is planning on attending school in New York, Ali applies to Columbia and NYU, noted journalist schools as is her interest, so they can be a subway ride away from each other.

However, objectives change when Ali becomes pregnant. She must decide what to do. The choices are obvious but none simple. Her loving parents want the best for her, but they also want to make that choice. Her boyfriend Matt is confused and bewildered; one moment feeling they can do it if he gives up his artistic dreams and she her journalistic endeavors to raise the child as a married couple; the next just wanting to attend college with no responsibilities except grades. Her best friend Monica is there for her, but Ali knows in the end everything is up to her.

BUTTERFLIES IN MAY is an insightful look at teen pregnancies through the eyes of an intelligent, cautious female who abruptly finds herself needing to make difficult adult decisions, Ali holds the tale together as she struggles with her world reversing polarity from a somewhat carefree existence to making complex adult choices. Karen Hart provides a deep character study-family drama in which the emphasis is to provide teens with honest education, information and knowledge instead of sound bites, shrills, and platitudes. Parents and leaders need to be there not preach as sometimes even a careful person can land in a sticky situation.

Harriet Klausner