Street Love
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3.9 • 13 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
This groundbreaking novel in verse from Walter Dean Myers—two-time Newbery Honor winner and five-time Coretta Scott King Award winner—is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet story set in Harlem. Share this one with readers taken with books by Jason Reynolds, Nic Stone, and Elizabeth Acevedo.
Whether read at home or in the classroom, and alongside the original inspiration or on its own. Street Love is sure to spark opinions and conversations.
"This verse novel, in which entire poems dazzle readers with rhyme and rhythm and voice, finds Damien, a straight-A student, headed for Brown University. But he falls in love with Junice, a girl whose mother has just been incarcerated for selling drugs, and his direction could change. Readers enjoy multiple perspectives on this romance and the decision Damien makes." (Kirkus starred review)
"Hip-hop fans, readers of poetry, and hopeless romantics will respond to the emotional vibrancy of this powerful work." (VOYA)
Your first love is totally wrong for you.
Do you follow your heart?
Or do you run away?
Walter Dean
Myers was a New York Times bestselling author, Printz Award
winner, five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, two-time Newbery
Honor recipient, and the National Ambassador for Young People's
Literature. Maria Russo, writing in the New York
Times, called Myers
"one of the greats and a champion of diversity in children’s books well
before the cause got mainstream attention."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Myers's (Monster) compellingly readable novel in verse unfolds through an array of characters, all linked by Damien Battle and Junice Ambers who both live in Harlem but come from very different worlds. Damien has been accepted to Brown University; Junice's mother has been sentenced to 25 years for possession and drug dealing. A pair of early rap poems set up a rivalry between Damien and Sledge (whose "crew... wore their colors"), and also Damien's fascination with a "beauty" who "walks darkly, as if her mind weighs down/ Her steps," later revealed to be Junice. Myers crafts some memorable moments here, as when Junice describes her mother ("She gave freely/ To those in need, or to those who, like/ Her, were broken, and needed a fix") or when Miss Ruby, Junice's grandmother, expresses grief for her convicted daughter in a blues poem ("Yeah, it's hard, baby/ It's hard right down to the bone/ I said Oh, it's hard baby/ It's hard right down to the very bone/ It's hard when you're a woman/ And you find yourself all alone") and the banter between Damien and a buddy. Yet some readers may wish for a deeper understanding of what draws Damien to Junice, and why he risks his own family's upheaval and his future at Brown for this new romance. Though both Damien and Junice come off as sympathetic characters, their attraction to each other remains a mystery. Ages 12-up.
