145th Street: Short Stories

In the book called 145th street,things happend that don't happen anywhere else in the world.There is mysteries and secrets on that street that nobody has revealed.People on 145th street acted different.Billy is the best fighter of the street.The author of the book is Walter Dean Mayers.I like this book because I like the weird things that happend on that street.I also like the book because in some parts of the book there was action, like the part when Billy and Vegas were fighting, Billy was throwing right and left shots to Vegas' face.What I like the most about the book was the short story called,Block party 145th street style, because it has a wedding with a lot of action.I recommend this book to teenagers because its like a middle school book.Also I recommend this book to teenagers because is a good book that talks about 14 or 15 year old kids, it has action and funny things that grab your mind so you want to read more.

I had to read this book 4 school and I thought it waz gonna be really stupid. But then I started to read through it and I really enjoyed it. I owned Mouse Rap but I neva read it, and I just finished Slam. But this book iz different than the others. Even though Slam is my all time favorite this book waz really good. I liked how Walter Dean Myers put the characters in real life situations and showed how they dealt it out.

I really liked the book because it realated or reminded me of being back home! Back home it seemed like everywhere around where i stayed everybody knew everybody, and thats the way the book was. On 145th street it seemed like everything happened and when it did everybody knew about it! i Also like the book because i like how he makes it sound like we're all sitting around listening to someone tell what happened earlier that day! The stories i really injoyed were Big Joe's funeral, and The Baddest Dog in harlem! I m really loking forward to reading more of his books!

So much attention has been given to Christopher Paul Curtis lately, but it seems to me the prolific work of Walter Dean Myers needs a loud cheering section--so here goes. Two customer reviews, "Another Stunning Work..." and "Good Stories Spun..." give thorough synopses of this anthology. I'll add that my middle schoolers LOVED these stories when I bought the book last spring, and I plan on reading it with my seventh graders later this year too. The stories are combinations of slick, sad, silly, and serious, and therefore one story was able to hook the kids into reading another and another. One 12 year old boy in my class was so intrigued by a character named Peaches--described as "so fine"--that he paid attention to everything else we read from the book hoping she'd turn up again. And she did! Walter Dean Myers just has a keen sense of the world and his gift with words makes reading this, and any, book by him a pleasure.

This book of short stories reads like an interconnected novel, a snapshot of a place as well as the people who live there. Rarely is geography as integral to plot, and to the lives of the characters, in YA fiction as it is with Myers's work. 145th Street is a shining example of the short story medium; from the hurt hopelessness in "Fighter" to the slapstick humor in "The Streak," each of these stories is a jewel that joins into a perfect treasure. Authentic voices, in raging pain and in jubilation, make this one of the most uplifting books so far this year