Summer Reading 2014: The Pregnancy Project (Nonfiction)

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Rodriguez's authentic voice is the highlight of this inspiring book on an often-uninspiring topic: teen pregnancy. The author reveals her innermost feelings, including her pro-life sentiment, and never glosses over the truth, even when discussing her own family's almost epidemic history with teen pregnancy. Although Rodriguez opens with her family's story, not the start of her senior project that became an overnight media sensation, the history is necessary and feels like a conversation with a friend. Once she begins to tell about her faked pregnancy to unmask stereotypes and find out what really happens to teen moms, it is difficult to put the book down. Wearing a wire-and-cloth pregnancy belly, Rodriguez made her way through six months of "pregnancy" while enduring all the stares, disappointed looks, and nasty comments from family, friends, and teachers. Her boyfriend, who was also a part of theproject, was repeatedly pressured by his friends to leave Gaby before she and the baby destroyed his future. The day that the teen presented her senior project and removed her "baby bump" thrust her into the national spotlight. She hoped to help teens understand pregnancy and to challenge them to live up to their own expectations, not down to the expectations of others. (School Library Journal)

Gaby Rodriguez made national headlines in 2011 when, as a seventeen-year-old high school senior from Toppenish, Washington, she revealed she had faked a pregnancy for a class project. Her experience inspired a Lifetime movie, also titled The Pregnancy Project. Her grades were in the top 5 percent of her graduating class, and she was a commencement speaker. She was also in the ASB Leadership group and president of the school’s chapter of M.E.Ch.A (Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos de Aztlan: Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan). She was raised by her single mom and has seven brothers and sisters. She is currently attending college. (Amazon)