Monday, October 17, 2011

Monster

Annotation: Who is Steve Harmon? Is he the wrongly accused teen son of loving parents? The aspiring filmmaker his teacher believes in? Or is he the monster the prosecution is steadily building a case against? All that matters now is who the jury decides he is.

Book Talk: All I know for certain about Steve Harmon is that he’s a young black man from Harlem, on trial for murder. The reality of his life as an accused criminal, with his future now in the hands of lawyers, a judge and a jury, and surrounded by violent and desperate inmates, is unbearable. So Steve turns to his passion, filmmaking, to process the unthinkable experience. The trial becomes a movie in his mind, with a script of dialogue from the characters swirling around him, and camera directions of the action as it unfolds. The suspense builds as the verdict looms ever closer; Steve reflects on his past and the choices that led him to this moment. After listening to all the witnesses and lawyers discuss him, even Steve isn’t sure anymore whether or not he’s the Monster the prosecution is working so hard to convince the jury he is. His only hope now is that the jury will disagree!




Awards:
  • ALA Best Book for Young Adults
  • ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice
  • ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
  • Arizona Young Reader’s Award
  • Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor Book
  •  Bulletin Blue Ribbon (The Bulletin of the Center for     Children’s  Books)
  •  Coretta Scott King Honor (Author)
  • Horn Book Fanfare
  • Kentucky Bluegrass Award
  •  Michael L. Printz Award
  •  National Book Award Finalist
  • Publishers Weekly Best Book

Meyers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York: Harper, 1999. Print.


Image courtesy of http://glendaleteens.blogspot.com/

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