Myers, W. D., & Myers, C.
(1999). Monster. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Steve Harmon is on trial for being
involved in a murder of a drugstore owner.
He is on trial at the same time as another boy, James King, who is
accused of being the shooter. Steve was
supposedly the lookout to let them know if anyone was in the store. As he goes through the trial he sees how this
has affected his mom, dad, and brother. He
is a 16 year old boy in prison and realizes he should not be there. He also realizes how it affects him, and he
determines to find out who he is and what he is about.
Myers does a great job of telling
this realistic story through a boy’s diary/ journal and writing it like a script
for a movie. Steve is in a film class at
school and decides to tell his story as he would a script for a film he would
make. It is his way to process what is
going on and at the same time be detached from it. He does include entries of his thoughts
periodically to tell us what he is feeling.
The ending has a slight twist when his lawyer doesn’t respond to him
positively after they win his case and caused me to wonder myself at his guilt
or innocence. Was there more to the
story than was told? Steve says he was
not involved and not in the store that day when he is on the stand, but in one
part of the book he says what was wrong with buying mints? Which makes me
wonder if he was in the store that day.
Great book for middle school and up.
Books by Walter Dean Myers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtlkXnf3-vY WDM interview
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