Light shelfwear and rubbing to covers and edges. Pages tight and clean. 243 pages. MMP Binding. Year: 1997. ISBN: 0425156656. Winner of the 1996 First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. It's Imani's seventeenth birthday today, and her family is waiting...her mother, an epileptic who sees visions; Zulie, the great cook and even great storyteller; her grandmother, who's seventy-two and blind but still weaves miracles on her loom. The cake sits uneaten as they wonder where the birthday girl is. But Imani is still out somewhere with her best friend, who's just revealed that she's pregnant. And Imani knows that her friend needs her right here, right now.