Doormat
by Kelly McWilliams

Fourteen-year-old Jaime has a history of bailing other people out of trouble, especially her best friend, Melissa, who takes Jaime for granted.

When Melissa becomes pregnant, Jaime once again agrees to help. Only this time Jaime refuses to be the same old doormat. She wants to see Melissa deal with ther own problems. Besides, Jaime has a life to live, too. She has a role in a play, and a boy named Zach may have a crush on her.

Doormat was written by Kelly McWilliams when she was in High School.

Kelly says, "In eighth grade I invented some characters-the characters featured in Doormat-that I found interesting enough to write about. I 've done a lot of reading in sixteen years and a good chunk of it has been in young adult fiction. I think it's important for kids to grow up and make decisions along with a set of great characters. By the time those kids are teenagers, the characters have grown too-if not in actual age, then in the way the readers see them."

Adapted from the Junior Library Guild.