Book Descriptions
for 145th Street by Walter Dean Myers
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Each of these ten stories is set on 145th street in Harlem. Together, they portray a neighborhood teeming with life at its funniest, saddest, most tragic, and most celebratory. In short, 145th street is a very human place. As with any neighborhood where there is a sense of community, the inhabitants watch each other and watch out for each other. They gossip, bear witness, battle, judge, support, defend, and embrace. Big Joe throws his own funeral so he can enjoy the party. The unnamed narrator of “The Baddest Dog in Harlem” stumbles onto a scene of senseless and brutal death. Young Angela Luz Colón, who starts to have prophetic dreams after her father dies, learns that it is best to keep silent about them. Officer William Michael O’Brien, a white cop from Staten Island, is hesitant to accept the friendship of Mother Fletcher, an aging Black woman who lives on his Harlem beat, until his wife and daughter shame him into opening his heart. These and other characters in the stories of 145th Street come to life on these pages, speaking in voices that young adults will recognize, sharing experiences at once distinct and universal in the emotions they convey. The stories are diverse in content, tone, and style, broadening the potential use and appeal of the collection as a whole (and almost guaranteeing that not every story will be wholly embraced). Winner, CCBC 2001 Coretta Scott King Author Discussion (Age 13 and older)
CCBC Choices 2001. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2001. Used with permission.
From the Publisher
An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
New Bonus Content:
-Q&A with Walter Dean Myers
-Teaser chapter from On a Clear Day
-Excerpt from Hoops
The first week of his senior year, everything changed. That’s when Mack met Kitty. She hadn’t finished the sonnet she wrote for him, but she had finished Mack. From that minute on, he was stupid in love.
That’s just Kitty and Mack.
But everybody on the block has a story to tell.
A salty, wrenchingly honest collection of stories set on one block of 145th Street. We get to know the oldest resident; the cop on the beat; fine Peaches and her girl, Squeezie; Monkeyman; and Benny, a fighter on the way to a knockout. We meet Angela, who starts having prophetic dreams after her father is killed and Big Joe, who wants a bang-up funeral while he's still around to enjoy it. Some of these stories are private, and some are the ones behind the headlines. In each one, characters jump off the page and pull readers right into the mix on 1-4-5.
New Bonus Content:
-Q&A with Walter Dean Myers
-Teaser chapter from On a Clear Day
-Excerpt from Hoops
The first week of his senior year, everything changed. That’s when Mack met Kitty. She hadn’t finished the sonnet she wrote for him, but she had finished Mack. From that minute on, he was stupid in love.
That’s just Kitty and Mack.
But everybody on the block has a story to tell.
A salty, wrenchingly honest collection of stories set on one block of 145th Street. We get to know the oldest resident; the cop on the beat; fine Peaches and her girl, Squeezie; Monkeyman; and Benny, a fighter on the way to a knockout. We meet Angela, who starts having prophetic dreams after her father is killed and Big Joe, who wants a bang-up funeral while he's still around to enjoy it. Some of these stories are private, and some are the ones behind the headlines. In each one, characters jump off the page and pull readers right into the mix on 1-4-5.
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.
