Verna

Verna is a teenage girl who lives with her mother in the inner city. She loves going to school and spending time with her friends, and she dreams of going to college after she graduates. She is preoccupied with saving money for college, and she begins to think about ways she can make money working part time. When she responds to a babysitting ad posted at school, she meets Jolly, a young mother with two children. Verna's mother is initially unenthusiastic about the idea of her working with Jolly because she is scared that she will be negatively influenced, but Verna is excited to spend time with children and she feels compassion for Jolly who seems to really need help.

Verna struggles with the high expectations that she has with her herself, and also with what her mother expects for her. Verna’s father was killed in a...