Friday, March 27, 2009

Teen Books for Adults: Monster by Walter Dean Myers

Teen books are the best books ever!

I’m not just saying that because I spend much of the day on the lower level, meaning my reading choices are limited to whatever is down here, ordering lists, e-mails and other miscellaneous paper work. They’re really good books. Why? Because you’ll never pick up a teen book and discover the heroine’s problems all disappear when some billionaire bachelor sweeps her off her plain, pathetic, poor, uneducated, I-hate-my-job-and-need-an-intervention feet. (Because what rich man doesn’t want to marry a basket case?) Like movies from the 1970s, teen books are edgier and they actually have work through their problems.

At the top of my must read teen books list is Monster by Walter Dean Myers. This book literally flies off the shelf, and not just because I press it into the hands of every teen who makes the mistake of looking bored or sitting at the computer too long. A National Book Award finalist, Coretta Scott King honor book, and winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, this book has so many honors that if we lined the spine with award stickers you wouldn’t be able to read the label.

Yes, it’s that good.

Steve Harmon is young and black.

Steve Harmon is an amateur filmmaker.

Steve Harmon is on trial for murder.

Was he the lookout for a fatal shooting or was this a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Guess there’s only one way for you to find out…

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