Lullabies for Little Criminals (The Childhood of a 13-Year-Old Prostitute)

I found this book, 🎶 Lullabies for Little Criminals 🎶, tucked away within a Little Library. From the description alone, I knew that I was going to love it. Having a tumultuous childhood is one of the greatest uniting factors in this world.

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⚠️ A quick warning ahead of time -- this post will contain a lot of triggering content, including covering topics such as sex, drugs, abuse, etc. If any of this is unsettling for you, please consider turning back now ⚠️

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Meet 12-year-old Baby (yes, that is her real name). Baby lives with her father, Jules, who takes better care of his heroin addiction that he does of his own daughter. Growing up motherless and with little parental guidance, Baby often finds herself on the shit end of the stick. At such a young age, she has already found herself a victim of The System™. A bout of tuberculosis and another of addiction causes Jules to be absent from Baby's life, and she experiences the home life of foster care. Withdrawals cause him to treat Baby terribly. The only friends she has are delinquents. Everywhere she goes, Baby cannot seem to fit in.

✨️ "She was the only person who'd fallen out of grace for me. Eventually everyone would fall one by one like stars dropping out of the sky, leaving me standing in the dark. But during those first days of delinquency -- there's nothing that ever tastes sweet like that -- most everyone still dazzled my eyes." ✨️

Things only escalate as she progresses into adolescence. Having no one to advise her on boys, Baby ends up under the arm of a pimp. At only 13, she loses her virginity to him, and he eventually begins to use her as a prostitute. They both become addicted to heroin and he starts to physically abuse Baby, until one day the pimp takes too big a hit and overdoses 💀

It is then that Baby finally tries to get in contact with her father again. Thankfully Jules has turned his life around, and finally chooses to do the same for his daughter.

🤝 "His fingers were all stained yellow and brown from cigarettes, and mine looked white and small in comparison. It seemed true that one of us could be saved." 🤝

(Image created using an AI art generator on NightCafe)

He tells Baby that she is going to stay with his cousin, a lady!, a woman who can guide Baby through womanhood. Someone far more knowledgeable than Jules on the matter! 🤣 They both travel to Baby's new home, and the book ends with Baby meeting Janine for the first time.

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My review... I loved this book, for the simple fact that it resonated with me... No, I wasn't a child prostitute!! 😭 But I grew up in an environment that heavily sexualized me, and obviously confronting sex at a young age profoundly shapes your childhood, and even beyond. There was a lot of stuff that I could relate to with Baby, not wanting to have sex... The uncomfortable atmosphere, the awkwardness, the inability to speak up for yourself, freezing up, feeling disgustingly filthy and sad and small... It was terrible to relive Baby's experiences, but the author captured it all wonderfully.

Reliving Baby's experiences with boys was also difficult, and there is actually a line where she summarizes things beautifully:

😾 "I was always moved when mean people were suddenly nice to me. It was a weakness that would lead me into some bad relationships later in life." 😾

Anyone who has experienced abuse and trauma can probably sympathize with this line. When you grow up in an environment that causes you to walk on eggshells, affection from strangers can send you over the moon~ 🥰 Unfortunately there are tons of people, mostly adults with lived experience under their belts, that recognize this, and will go out of their way to take advantage of the vulnerable. It is not until later that ulterior motives are revealed, after the victim has experienced kindness and sympathy, and is afraid to lose the relationship.

I loved reading about Baby's experiences with drugs. As a stoner myself, it brought back so many pleasant memories... However, it also brought back unpleasant memories as Baby's situation starts to escalate and she tries heroin. Again, it is a situation many people have experienced; I never would have tried crack-cocaine if my then-boyfriend hadn't offered it to me in the first place.

Aside from personal experience, I loved this book for its extremely realistic characters; despite what each child was going through, they still managed to retain innocent parts of themselves. I also enjoyed the author's use of imagery. There were so many deliciously divine descriptions -- I tried picking out some of my absolute favorites...

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🌠 "They were sitting there like Wynken, Blynken, and Nod: three little boys who were tucked in together, about to sail off into the starry universe." 🌠

🥧 "Sleeping next to Zachary was like sleeping in the middle of a cherry pie that had just come out of the oven." 🥧

🍰 "They were the arms of a woman who had eaten a hundred delicious cakes and pastries to get them this comfortable." 🍰

🍷"The wine would make my feet feel soft and buzzy, like hummingbirds. ... My laughter was like warm water running through my body." 🍷

🐦 "I noticed some bird footprints all over the light layer of snow on the sidewalk, making it look like a Chinese menu." 🐦

🗯 "I whispered the word 'Shit' and it came out of my mouth in calligraphic letters, like in a cartoon." 🗯

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When you've had a childhood like Baby's, thinking about the future seems unfathomable... So my advice to anyone in this situation is to find support -- wherever it may be. Even if it's just one friend, or if you happen to look for help in the wrong places -- have faith and just keep going. I couldn't have managed to get sober if my father had not opened up his door to me. I never would have believed in the future if I had not met my husband, and eventually our two beautiful daughters... 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧

⭐️ "The stars are always up in the sky. You just can't see them during the day until the sky becomes dark." ⭐️