Name: Ryan Snyder
Author: Walter Dean Myers
Title: Scorpions
Pages: 224
Rating: 8
This is a very tragic book that relates to a lot of lives today. The central issue of this book is Jamal’s brother ;he was guilty by association in a homicide. His brother was the leader of a crack dealing gang called the Scorpions who got in a hold up in a deal and shots got fired. So because of his brothers high bail amount in jail, Jamal takes up the leader role as a 12 year old and starts to deal drugs to earn his brother’s bail money. I noticed that throughout the book Jamal had problems after problems. At first Jamal's dad left him when he was a child and caused his family a lot of problems. Then his brother was put in jail. After that his brother was stabbed in jail. Most of the events in this book are tragic. At the end of this book, Jamal’s only friend Tony killed someone while he was being mugged. Tony was sent away to live with his dad in Puerto Rico and Jamal never saw him. After Jamal suffered severe depression.
This is a great book. The author has written a lot of books and this is one of my favorites. Most of Myers books are about young men and their struggles through life. He is truly one of my favorite authors. I learned from this book that you should always be grateful for what you have because there is always someone who may have less than you.
I think this book sounds like a good example of how people really do live hard lives every day. A lot of us take for granted good lives we live while there are people in situations like these endangering themselves committing crimes and doing bad things not necessarily because they are bad people, but rather because they saw those actions as their only hope towards getting by or towards helping someone. You wrote a good book report and this seems like a book worth reading.
ReplyDeleteHi Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI have heard of this author, but have never read anything by him. It sounds like it has an urban setting - did that affect how you were able to relate to the book? Jamal certainly got "stung" by the scorpions!
Mrs. B