HIP-HOP HIGH SCHOOL

“You have big shoes to fill, Miss Theresa Anderson. Make good choices, please.” Theresa, a high-school senior, hates when teachers bring up her famous brother Andre, a journalism student at Stanford. Theresa knows she’s smart, but she’s entrenched in school life, torn between punk or pain, fitting in or getting out. Fellow student, Devon Hampton, helps Theresa face up to her talent, beat the SAT, apply to top colleges and leave an environment in which so many fellow students are drowning. Lively prose, strong dialogue and humor make this an appealing story with an important message: “Good things happen to those who try.” Following The Hoopster (2005) in a planned trilogy, this says much about adolescence, schooling and society, wrapped up in a dramatic and inspiring tale. Though Theresa makes it out, there’s sadness, too, for all of those who don’t. A work for teens that adults would do well to read—along with Jonathan Kozol’s recent study, The Shame of the Nation. (Fiction. YA)