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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 ALICEA | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A sixteen-year-old Puerto Rican-American boy presents intelligent reflections on inner-city life.
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 UpThis book is a breath of fresh air for YA readers and writers and for professionals working with them. Through a series of 132 essays, readers meet Alicea, a Hispanic American teen growing up in the housing projects of the South Bronx. His reflections on everything from his mother's terminal illness to Egyptology are always poignant and provocative, never cloying and never clichéd. Carefully chosen black-and-white photographs increase the resonance of Alicea's writings, and DeSena, his collaborator and editor, allows the young man's voice to reach readers clearly and openly.æDoris A. Fong, Benson Polytechnic High School, Portland, OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
With the typical dictated ``essay'' in this collection of 115 occupying a page or less, this thin book consists not so much of ``tales'' but of the short-attention-span observations of a teenager growing up in the 'hood. DeSena, a humor writer, became a pal of young Gilhe doesn't explain howand decided to record Gil's reflections. Gil is a lively kid, speaking a mild street vernacular (``Some parents be fooling around''), and he reports on his dangerous school (most kids carry weapons), his ambition to become a famous hoopster and his struggle to deal with his mother's illness and, ultimately, with her death. He has acquired wisdom (``I have learned that even the most horrible things change'') and perspective (``I think to be having sex, you should be an age not in your teens''). Still, though this book may be accessible and interesting to teenagers, other efforts in journalism and memoir tell us much more about ghetto teens. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Life in a South Bronx housing project is conveyed through an insightful narrative by a Hispanic-American young adult. With honesty, humor, and a sense of hopefulness, Gil Alicea relates the dark realities of his everyday world -- drugs, poverty, death -- as well as his typical adolescent concerns over basketball, clothes, and friends. Black-and-white photographs illustrate the text. From HORN BOOK 1995, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Ruminations, 115 in all, recast by DeSena (Lies: The Whole Truth, 1993, not reviewed) from taped conversations with a South Bronx teenager, on drugs, sex, teachers, school food, and other topics dear to an adolescent's heart. Alicea comes across as an opinionated, reasonably articulate 15-year-old with a realistic combination of naïveté and self-awareness, offering sweeping solutions to social problems, but also cogent observations about the dangers of hanging out, the realities of life at school and on the block, and dozens of other subjects. Despite DeSena's introduction and a set of imaginatively composed black-and-white photos, readers will learn more about Alicea's concerns than about him; there's no clear chronology to these pieces, and the only ``tales'' are infrequent, fragmentary anecdotes. He has little or nothing to say about his friends, day-to-day home life or future plansthe note that he chose to start tenth grade in a private school outside New York City comes out of the blue. While a sense of humor and optimistic view of life's possibilities suggest that not every inner-city resident is beaten down by the mean streets, Alicea's rambling narrative seems more like a wall than a window, lacking the intensity or clarity of purpose that fires books like Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here (1991). (Autobiography. 11-15)
Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-12. Gil Alicea was 16 years old when he wrote these 115 short autobiographical essays. Proud of his family and of his Puerto Rican heritage, Gil lives with his father in a South Bronx neighborhood. He shares his views of his neighbors' problems--drugs, violence, street gangs, the police--but he also points out the New York Board of Education's misrepresentation of kids from the Bronx in a piece about schools: "It makes me feel that a lot of people judge us before we start. . . . Why can't we start like everybody else?" Gil's reflections on his experiences with his family, at school, and among his friends are those of a young man filled with hope for his future and joy in his present. Illustrated with black-and-white photos taken by Gil, this is an authentic and truthful self-portrait. Kids in urban neighborhoods may recognize themselves, but teens wanting to know more about their urban peers will also enjoy the book. Also, the format may attract reluctant readers. --Merri Monks
Library Journal Review
Alicea and Kozol paint a vivid portrait of life in one of America's most impoverished neighborhoods, New York City's South Bronx. While telling similar stories, each narrative has its own unique flavor and characteristics that reveal the crushing nature of poverty in America and recount the lives of those who rise above it. Kozol (Savage Inequalities, LJ 9/15/91) describes a neighborhood ravaged by drugs, violence, hunger, AIDS, and antipathy but also one where children defy all the stereotypes. In the South Bronx, where the median income is $7600 a year and everything breaks down, Kozol reveals that the one thing that has remained resilient is the children. One of the resident children is 15-year-old Alicea, who saw his mother and sister succumb to AIDS, a father incarcerated in prison, and friends entrapped by drugs or violence. Like that of many children, his story is a life of options or despair. The path they pursue is dependent on government leadership. Both books should be required reading for policymakers and those concerned with the plight of the American poor.Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
