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Summary
Summary
Eighth grade is hard enough, but when you're a Cruiser, you're really put to the test. The launch of a new middle-grade series from bestselling award-winner Walter Dean Myers.
Zander and his friends, Kambui, LaShonda, and Bobbi start their own newspaper, The Cruiser, as a means for speaking out, keeping the peace, and expressing what they believe. When the school launches a mock Civil War, Zander and his friends are forced to consider the true meaning of democracy and what it costs to stand up for a cause. The result is nothing they could have expected, and everything they could have hoped for.
Author Notes
Walter Dean Myers was born on August 12, 1937 in Martinsberg, West Virginia. When he was three years old, his mother died and his father sent him to live with Herbert and Florence Dean in Harlem, New York. He began writing stories while in his teens. He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Army at the age of 17. After completing his army service, he took a construction job and continued to write.
He entered and won a 1969 contest sponsored by the Council on Interracial Books for Children, which led to the publication of his first book, Where Does the Day Go? During his lifetime, he wrote more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. His works include Fallen Angels, Bad Boy, Darius and Twig, Scorpions, Lockdown, Sunrise Over Fallujah, Invasion, Juba!, and On a Clear Day. He also collaborated with his son Christopher, an artist, on a number of picture books for young readers including We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart and Harlem, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, as well as the teen novel Autobiography of My Dead Brother.
He was the winner of the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award for Monster, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. He also won the Coretta Scott King Award for African American authors five times. He died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness, at the age of 76.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Four smart but underachieving students-Zander, LaShonda, Bobbi, and Kambui-at a Harlem school for the gifted and talented star in Myers's (Sunrise over Fallujah) thought-provoking if occasionally heavy-handed first installment of the Cruisers series. Giving the quartet one last chance to shape up, the assistant principal issues them a challenge: while the other eighth graders are divided into Union and Confederate sympathizers for a study project, the Cruisers (named after an alternative newspaper they produce) are charged with negotiating peace. Tensions and tempers flare when students writing as "the Sons of the Confederacy" contribute a pro-slavery editorial to the official school paper ("I mean, there I was, black from locks to 'Boks, from dreads to Keds, but I just didn't think much on it and now it was all up in my face," thinks Zander). Through Zander's levelheaded narration and editorials mostly written by the Cruisers, Myers explores freedom of speech, the role that race and the Constitution played in the 19th-century slavery debate, the moral implications of slavery, and the effectiveness of peaceful demonstration-a lot of food for thought for a slim novel. Ages 9-12. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
The "Cruisers," a group of friends at a gifted and talented middle school in Harlem, are assigned the task of negotiating peace in a school-wide historical re-enactment of the Civil War--before the war starts. Protagonist Zander's breezy narration lends accessibility to Myers's consistently solid writing and thought-provoking themes. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Though it's a rather slim novel, the first in a presumed series, Myers' latest is a finely crafted look at smart, urban underachievers. Eighth-grader Zander Scott and his friends are known as the Cruisers in their Harlem school for gifted and talented kids, primarily for being fine with Cs and not into that heavy competition thing. They've also started an unofficial newspaper, The Cruiser, that isn't explicitly designed to ruffle the school administration's feathers but has a knack for it anyway. A project on the Civil War splits the class into Union and Confederate sympathizers, and the Cruisers are tasked with trying to mediate a peace. Tempers flare as the school (perhaps unrealistically) allows the project to progress a bit too far, but that gives the kids a chance to get creative in their responses to racial tensions. Anytime Myers steps to the plate, you know there's a chance he'll hit it out of the park. Although this book isn't the kind of towering shot he sometimes delivers, he legs it out by doing all the little things right: fleet pacing, a spot-on voice, good characters, great dialogue, smart ideas, and an unusual story that can maneuver whip-quick from light to heavy and right back again. An edifying book about wise kids stretching themselves without the sort of didacticism young readers are so good at sniffing out.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-9-When a school-wide assignment divides students into "North" and "South," four friends try to find nonviolent methods to keep the peace. Strong characterizations and a gripping premise make this an especially discussable novel as the kids realize that issues of free speech, racism, and respect loom as large in the 21st century as they did in the 1860s. Audio version available from Brilliance Audio. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In the first volume of a planned quartet, Myers introduces eighth graders Zander, LaShonda, Bobbi and Kambui, students at Da Vinci Academy, a middle school for the gifted and talented in Harlem, and staff of The Cruiser, an alternative to the school newspaper. The masthead on The Palette reads, "Education is a journey on the high seas of life." Zander and the Cruisers say, "We weren't on a journey, we were just cruising." But when their history teacher invents a role-playing exercise dividing students into Union versus Confederate sympathizers, with Zander and company as peace negotiators, Zander doesn't think much about it until the Confederates' editorials in The Palette turn offensive. "Black from locks to 'Boks, from dreads to Keds," Zander gets involved. Can a school newspaper print such inflammatory articles? Is it free speech? What is the proper response? A serious issue and a group of smart, likable protagonists make this an enjoyable inaugural volume, and readers will look forward to further tales of Zander and his friends as they navigate the high seasor Cs, in Zander's caseof middle-school life. (Fiction. 9-13) ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
