Monster by Walter Dean Myers

Monster by Walter Dean Myers

BookSnap

Rationale

The story of Monster follows a teenager who has been arrested on a murder charge.  He has been accused as acting as the look out for a robbery gone wrong, in which the cashier was killed.  The book is written in the format of a screenplay, with interspersed first-person narrative.  The main character, Steve, is in a film-making club and is writing his experience as a film which he intends to produce upon his release.  The story follows Steve throughout his trial and up to the verdict.  And, while the reader knows the outcome of the trial, you are left feeling that you still don’t know all the facts and whether Steve is, in reality, innocent or guilty.

I chose the picture of a stark jail cell for the BookSnap because, much like the book cover, the story (and Steve’s experiences) feel raw, real and barren like his jail cell.  I included a line from the Kirkus Review of the book.  I believe it captures the essence of the book and attracts the audience in relatively few words.  The quote from the book was chosen to show Steve’s internal struggles.  Throughout the book, he struggles with his identity and his own perception of himself.  Is he a “monster” or the good person he feels he is in his heart.

Related Reads

Related Read Title	Related Read Author	Category	How Related Read Relates to Initial Title	Why You Would Recommend the Related Read
Dreamland Burning	Jennifer Latham	Mystery	Both explore US race relations in the format of a mystery.	A YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books of the Year Pick. Kirkus Starred Review Booklist Starred Review
All American Boys	Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely	Law & Crime	Explores race relations and the division of the community following a robbery	A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book. New York Times bestselling novel. Starred review in Booklist, School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.
The Hate U Give	Angie Thomas	Realistic Fiction	Covers social issues, race relations and violence	8 Starred reviews. National Book Award Longlist. Printz Honor. Coretta Scott King Honor Book. New York Times Bestseller.
The Outsiders	S.E. Hinton	Classic	Covers the darker side of young adulthood.	ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Similar in themes dealing with run-ins with law enforcement and cultural expectations.

Review

Kirkus Review: “In a riveting novel from Myers, a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action. Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence. The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made.”

References

Chance, R. (2014) Young adult literature in action: A librarian’s guide. (Second Edition). Denver, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Hinton, S. E. (2017). The outsiders. NY, NY: Penguin Group.

Kirkus Review. (1999, May 31). MONSTER by Walter Dean Myers. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/walter-dean-myers/monster-myers/

Latham, J. (2018). Dreamland Burning. Turtleback Books.

Myers, W. D. (1999). Monster. New York: Harper Collins.

Reynolds, J., & Kiely, B. (2017). All American boys. NY, NY: Atheneum, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division.

Thomas, A. (2018). The hate u give. New York, NY: Balzer Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Van, A. (2014, December 3). Prison Cell Jail Crime [Photograph found in AlexVan, Pixabay]. Retrieved June 28, 2018, from https://pixabay.com/en/prison-prison-cell-jail-crime-553836/ (Originally photographed 2014, August 28)