Brian F. Walker

This is a quasi-memoir by the author about a 14-year-old boy who grew up in a very bad section of East Cleveland, but manages to win a scholarship to start 9th grade at an elite boarding school in Maine.

Anthony's life before Belton Academy is contrasted with his life after he matriculates. In East Cleveland (EC), he had to contend with drugs, drinking, gangs, guns, and a culture that defined manhood in deleterious ways including “punching on girls.”

In Maine, he is one of only a few blacks, and he struggles to define himself among them. Acceptance carries a price:

"If I wanted to stay and get along with the people at Belton, then I had to become somebody else. Being black was okay, even cool, but only when it was convenient for others. If I sat with other black kids or wanted to talk about prejudice, then I was the one being racist.”

Meanwhile, back at home, he now seems too white; too non-ghetto for his old friends.

Anthony is not sure to which world he belongs, or even to which he wants to belong.

Evaluation: This well-written book provides an excellent glimpse at the pressures growing up in a neighborhood mired in poverty and crime, and the concurrent pressures faced by trying to leave that legacy behind. I have heard that The Beast by Walter Dean Myers is similar, but much more depressing; this one has a hopeful ending, especially since we know the author went on to be successful. I highly recommend this book for an understanding of what life is like in the chaos of blighted neighborhoods, and for a look at the hurdles to getting out of them.

Note: This book has heavy use of the “n” word. If you missed all the controversy over CNN’s Don Lemon’s broadcast criticizing the use of this word by blacks, it is a dialogue well worth examining. This is a link to a video in which Don Lemon defends his broadcast as well as reactions to his statements.… (més)

This book was not written for me. Nevertheless, I read it. And I've been of constant turmoil since. This book forced me to think about race and poverty: people I don't think about in depth, a sector of society I interact with only on the superficial level, but of whom I still have many opinions. I gained a glimpse into the similar and dissimilar ways young people of differing backgrounds engage in destructive behavior. I'm glad Walker shared this story. But it feels unfinished. This, I guess, leaves much open for discussion. I would highly recommend this book for young people, African American and integrated, grades 6th through 9th, to read and talk about.… (més)

Anthony Jones has a chance to get out of his tough East Cleveland, Ohio neighborhood but isn’t sure that going to prep school Belton Academy in rural Maine is the right answer. After witnessing the drive-by murder of his good friend Mookie, he decides to give it a try, anticipating that he’ll be the odd man out, and he is. As one of few black students in a mostly white school, in a town experiencing growing pains with an influx of African Somalis, Anthony has a difficult time getting the students to accept who he is. They keep calling him Tony, even after he repeatedly says “call me Ant”. They assume he’s from New York since that’s where their black students have been from in the past. They haze freshman by throwing them in a nearby creek, a fate Ant is willing to fight to avoid.

Ant can’t figure out how to fit in with all of them either. Should he become more like twenty-five twenty (the letters “y” and “t” in the alphabet)? Will he be an Uncle Tom by doing so? More confusing is his first trip back to East Cleveland when he realizes he doesn’t fit in there anymore either.

I confess it took me a while to get into this story, mostly because I’m a more mature (older) white woman, so I didn’t get Ant for a while. He is all over the place emotionally at times, and the story jumps a bit, making it harder to get the flow of his development. I also teach at a more integrated high school, which makes an effort to develop its multicultural/multiracial environment to better our school culture. An incident that occurs on his Christmas trip back to East Cleveland really got to me, and I couldn’t put the book down after that. This will be a great addition to my media center’s collection, and will go on my coming of age and multicultural fiction lists, which our freshman are all required to read.… (més)