Juvenile in Justice

Juvenile in Justice

This photographic journal was selected by YALSA as a best adult book for teens. It shows young people in juvenile detention facilities all across the U.S. If this book doesn't convince a person to stay out of prison, I don't know what will.

The pictures are accompanied by the words of the kids shown. They are lonely, dispirited, and adrift. The facilities are, without exception, devoid of cheer and anything remotely able to be fashioned into a sharp weapon. Even the food is colorless and has nothing that requires cutting with a knife. There are few if any books, posters, or anything to relieve the bland walls.

The faces of the kids are sometimes blurred or cropped out of the pictures but the ones where they cover their faces with their hands, shirts, or sheets seem even more full of shame and despair. The facts about juvenile detention systems are horrifying. For instance, Ross says that the city of Oakland spends $4,945 per student in school compared to $224,712 per person per year in their newest facility.

Ross' goal in publishing this book is to illustrate the uselessness and horrors of incarcerating teens and young people. No alternative programs are shown to offset the wrongness of these detention systems.  It is my hope that a young person reading this book will do everything humanly possible to stay out of such a place.

My rating for this book: 

Glass (2007)

This book is a sequel to Crank, the story of a meth addict loosely based on the life of Ellen Hopkins' daughter. Methamphetamine in a very pure form is called glass, ice, crystal, or "the monster" by Katrina, an 18-year old girl who has already danced with the devil, kicked the habit, and had a baby conceived during a rape. We join her in this book living with her mother, stepfather, and brother, taking care of her son and trying to get her life back on track. Unfortunately, the drug calls to her again.

I have my out.
I have my high.
I have more stash
waiting.
I have a job.
Almost have an income.
It is almost time
for an outstanding
eighteenth birthday.
I have earned my wings,
can't wait for my
test flight to freedom.
My head buzzes,
my body rushes,
electric, anxious.
I want a taste
of flight, a taste
of adulthood, another
small taste of ice
before afternoon dwindles.
The last thing on my
mind is Hunter, waiting
for his mommy.

Every promise she makes herself, she breaks. Every stopping point, she passes. We watch her inevitable downward spiral and we are appalled at how seductive this drug is. It gives the user such a rush of feelings in the beginning but the rush fades and it becomes harder to exist without using until it is impossible to quit. She is kicked out of her house and moves in with her dealer who needs a nanny for his two children. How convenient.

Have you Ever Tried

To quit
a bad habit, one
that has come to
define you?
To cease
using a substance-
any substance-
that you not only
need but enjoy?
To stop
yourself from
lighting up that
cigarette? It's going
to kill you, but hey,
you're going
to die
someday anyway,
why not die happy,
why not die buzzed,
why not die
satisfied? Why not
die sooner, with
fewer regrets, than
later?

Will she ever get over the drugs and enjoy a normal life? To recommend this book, please allow me to use free verse.

Read
this
book.
Now.

My rating for this book: ++++

Al Capone Shines My Shoes (2009)

Gennifer Choldenko has added another chapter to life of 12-year old Moose, his autistic sister, Natalie, and his friends who live on the grounds of Alcatraz prison, the home for the worst criminals. I have to chuckle when I read the description of how these children, one just starting first grade, hop on a ferry to go to school in San Francisco without a parent to fuss over them. They play baseball on an area right under the cells and some inmates are allowed to work in the residences of the families. Considering most parents won't let their kids cross the street unattended, things sure have changed.

That question aside, Moose finds that favors you get from people like Al Capone can carry a very heavy obligation. In the first book, Al Capone Does My Shirts, Mr. Capone managed to obtain a coveted spot in a special school for Natalie. In this book, Moose finally meets the man face to face.

My father stops near the bars of a cell on the west side. Just one man in this cell, a big beefy guy with dark black hair, dark eyes, a round face, big lips, and the kind of smile that makes you like him without thinking twice about it. He's got shoe polish and a buffing rag on his bed along with a pair of shiny black guard's shoes.

The man stands up and sticks his pudgy hand through the bars. In the shadow of his left side a jagged line cuts across his face - a scar. "That your boy, boss?" he asks.

My father nods. "Moose, meet Al Capone."

I highly recommend this story for readers who enjoy intrigue and some historical fiction.

My rating for this book: +++ 1/2