| ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. | |
| PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. | |
| OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. | |
| NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
Parents need to know that this book about inner-city life is a better fit for older teens. Tyrell does his best to help his family and keep his younger brother out of foster care, but his story is full of gritty details. Indeed, Tyrell is loaded with sex, language, and drugs, all of which are engaged in by the main character, who is 15. Swearing (including the "N" word, used colloquially) is frequent, as are sexual encounters between teens and sometimes between teens and adults. Most of the characters, including the main character and his mother, use marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol, and some secondary characters use and sell harder drugs; adults (including parents) give alcohol and marijuana to minors.
Nothing is working for Tyrell. His father has been sent to jail again, and his mother, unwilling or unable to take responsibility for the family, has lost their apartment, leaving them homeless. Unable to get homeless housing because of the mother's previous attempts to scam the system, Tyrell, his self-centered mother, and his younger brother end up being placed in a single room in a roach-infested motel with no provision for food, and seemingly no way out. Tyrell, trying the best a young teen can to provide for his family and keep his brother out of foster care, drops out of school.
Though he is not above petty crime to buy food, Tyrell resists his mother's efforts to push him into selling drugs. Instead he pins all of his hopes on planning an underground party -- with the money he can make there he hopes to get his family an apartment. But to pull it off he has to rely on others, few of whom are reliable, and most of whom are only out for themselves.
This powerful and gritty first novel by Coe Booth, a former crisis-center worker from the Bronx, clearly and grippingly portrays the reality of millennial inner-city life: the hard and limited choices, the despair, the waste of human potential, but also the relentless and determined efforts of some to take even one small step on the road out. Despite its difficult content it should have a place in any high school or college class on modern social problems.
Everything rings true here -- events, characters, attitudes, even the use of dialect. Booth never makes an awkward slip, and Tyrell's voice resonates in the reader's head like that of a real person. Even the ending remains utterly true and faithful to the situation and characters. This is a very auspicious debut.
Families can talk about Tyrell's life in the inner-city. What other movies or books do you know that take place in a similar environment? What are some of the things that are common in inner-city stories? How is this one different?
Do you think this book was meant for teens growing up like Tyrell -- or
for kids living in different types of environments? Who did the author
write this book for?
This book won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult
Fiction. Why do you think it received that honor? Are you more
interested in a book if it has won an award or earned good reviews -- or
do you like to make your own judgments?
| Author: | Coe Booth |
| Book type: | Fiction |
| Genre: | Contemporary Fiction |
| Publisher: | Scholastic Inc. |
| Publication date: | October 1, 2006 |
| Number of pages: | 310 |
| Hardcover price: | $16.99 |
| Publisher's recommended age(s): | 15 - 15 |
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