I wasn't too thrilled to see that a Walter Dean Myers novel made it as a National Book Award finalist, but I ordered the audiobook to listen to anyway. I must admit that I'm impressed to see that Myers wrote a good one--a tale of a African American teenager in juvie. I always thought that Myers was pumping out book after book of African American fiction without much thought (like Grisham or Patterson of the mystery realm), but this book reads like one of his earlier works. Reese is 14, tough, and in prison for a fairly minor offense. But he's having to make choices in prison--does he get into a fight to protect the weak, younger kid? Does he risk his good behavior for helping someone else? At his work program at a local retirement home, does he talk back to the angry white man who trash talks "black people" who are always stealing and killing each other? Myers does a good job taking us through Reese's mind and the decisions he makes to get him where he needs to go. Will prison (named Progress) reform him or hurt him?
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