What They Found: Love on 145th Street
By Matt Berman,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Powerful, intense short stories of love in the inner city.
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What's the Story?
In a series of related short stories that mostly take place in one neighborhood in Harlem, but also follow one character to battle in Afghanistan, this companion volume to 145th Street explores how loves blossoms in a variety of ways, even in the most difficult situations. Some examples: a very young girl struggles to care for her sick mother and even younger brother; a hardened street thug can open up when helping disabled children, but not with the girl he loves; and a teen considers holding up an old woman to buy his son a birthday present.
Is It Any Good?
Even though these are short stories, there's an emotional depth to them that is, at times, breathtaking. Veteran author Walter Dean Myers is interested in the many variations of love -- parents and children, friends and relations, siblings. Only in some of these stories does "love" mean romantic love. Even installments about men and women (or boys and girls) are more about the caring than the romance, and the many ways that caring shows itself.
Unlike authors who awkwardly try to reproduce street dialect in a vain attempt to seem authentic, Myers can make his characters real and vivid without swearing, and include the realities of sex, drugs, and violence without wallowing in them or resorting to graphic descriptions. He has been writing, and winning awards, for a long time now, and this book shows both the heart of a dyed-in-the-wool humanist, and the confidence that comes only with experience.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about short story collections. What makes them fun to read -- or is there anything about them that makes them less compelling than a novel?
What other books or movies take place in the inner-city? What are the similarities that you see in those stories -- and how does this representation compare? Why do you think stories like these are important?
Book Details
- Author: Walter Dean Myers
- Genre: Short Stories
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Random House
- Publication date: September 1, 2007
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 14 - 14
- Number of pages: 243
- Last updated: July 12, 2017
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