''Roxy's Baby'' is a 2005

young adult In medicine and the social sciences, a young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence, sometimes with some overlap. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages ...

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

by Catherine MacPhail. It is about a fifteen-year-old girl named Roxy who becomes pregnant and subsequently runs away from home.

Plot

Roxy is a fifteen-year-old girl living with her mother, her younger sister, and her new step-dad. Upset about her father's death and resentful of her mother remarrying, she begins to rebel. She attends a party where she has sex for the first time. Soon realising she's pregnant, Roxy runs away from home in fear. She goes to London, hoping to stay a shelter she read about, but quickly leaves when she realises the woman in charge will phone the police, when she learns Roxy is underage. Luckily, she finds help in the form of Mr and Mrs Dyce, a couple who host young pregnant women in their country house. Things quickly become suspicious; the girls in the Dyces' care are completely cut off from the rest of the world, not allowed to leave the grounds, or even read newspapers or listen to the radio, and once a girl is sent into the birthing room she's never seen again. The Dyces have answers to all of these, but things still seem odd. One night Roxy slips out, and discovers the Dyces have an extremely sinister motive behind their kindness...

Reception

It won the 13–16 years category at the 2006

Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family or royalty Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, ...

. It was also shortlisted for the

Manchester Book Award The Manchester Book Award is a project run in Manchester, UK, organised by School Services at the Manchester Library & Information Service; it is funded by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund. The project is currently in its fourth year. Each ye ...

and longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.The CILIP Carnegie Medal & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards
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References

2005 British novels English novels British young adult novels Novels about teenage pregnancy Bloomsbury Publishing books {{2000s-ya-novel-stub