Courage
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
For fans of Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander, a poignant and timely novel about race, class, and second chances.
Ever since T’Shawn’s dad died, his mother has been struggling to keep the family afloat. So when he’s offered a spot on a prestigious diving team at the local private swim club, he knows that joining would only add another bill to the pile.
But T studies hard and never gets into trouble, so he thinks his mom might be willing to bear the cost… until he finds out that his older brother, Lamont, is getting released early from prison.
Luckily, T’Shawn is given a scholarship, and he can put all his frustration into diving practices. But when criminal activity increases in the neighborhood and people begin to suspect Lamont, T’Shawn begins to worry that maybe his brother hasn’t left his criminal past behind after all. Can they put the broken pieces of their relationship back together?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The tense relationship between two brothers drives this middle grade debut set on Chicago's South Side, as narrator T'Shawn turns 13, joins a diving team, and deals with the return of his older brother, Lamont, from prison. Raised by his mother after his father's death from cancer (an illness that left crushing medical debt and caused the family a brief stint in a shelter), T'Shawn realizes that he wants to dive. A windfall scholarship allows him to participate in the sport, despite the notion that African-Americans "don't do water sports." Though the sports thread and familiar middle school issues, such as crushes, loom large, friction in T'Shawn's home anchors the story: he cannot forget the violence and betrayals of Lamont's former gang days and regards him as "the biggest villain I know." Binns amplifies T'Shawn's distrust with the neighborhood's concerns, and conflict heightens after T'Shawn gets swept up in a petition to send Lamont away. While forced dialogue marks some of the coverage of weighty issues, this novel successfully tackles the realities of homelessness, police intimidation and violence, and racism, and it ultimately demonstrates that forgiveness requires courage. Ages 8 12.
