Han Nolan in my view is a wonderful author, she has written books that reflect on the harsh problems people face in their lives. Nolan is the author of "Born Blue" which tells the story of a child growing up and making her life a mess.
Janie was four years old when she had almost drowned. As she was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico and her mother was paying her no attention, she had managed to wander out too far and a current had took her under. Due to that incident and the fact that her mother was heavily into heroin she was placed into a foster home that she had considered to be the "stink house".
The foster home was always a mess, with dirty diapers, dishes never being done, and no one ever picking up after them selves. In the foster home there were other kids, amongst them were a few babies and one seven year old little black boy named Harmon. Janie became to look to Harmon as her big brother and he was the only on she ever came to know as for the babies she could barely stand to be around them.
Harmon was one known to be quiet and very shy, he always carried a shoe box with him every where he would go not letting any one know what was in it because he always thought it would be taken away from him. As Harmon came to trust Janie he would finally decided to share with her what was in the box. In it was a collection of music tapes including Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald and other divas such as them.
Harmon and Janie would take the "ladies", which is what they had considered the tapes to be, and listen to them in the basement or sometimes in the tree house on headphones so no one could hear what they were doing. Janie would love to do this she always thought of it as spending time with the ladies. .
Janie and Harmon of course had a caseworker, she would bring them to church on Sundays and sometimes take them out for ice cream. The first time Janie attended church she saw how everyone would sing and she had decided to join in, when this happened she found how much joy it had brought her and also everyone around her noticed how beautiful her voice was.