Wingle Chin Chin itibaren Kachadi, Madhya Pradesh, India itibaren Kachadi, Madhya Pradesh, India

James is, of course, a (if not THE) master stylist . But I think my favorite thing about his writing is his ability to accurately portray women in a multi-dimensional manner.

Ready? Inhale! That's it. Like a short story, it's done, and then you can write your Response here. At 145 pp., this one's a slim jim, a hate crime meant to instruct, starring a young black man (teen father) who starts off going into a white neighborhood to heist a Lexus and winds up meeting the fat end of a baseball bat -- the kind swung by a white racist. For its size, the book manages to provide some good characterizations of a few of its players. Also, as you might expect, it suffers a few stereotypes. You might argue, "How can that be avoided if the book is about racists?" To which I would reply, "Hey, you're the author. Make it happen." Hysterically, the School Library Journal pegs this as appropriate for Grades 6 to 10. Right. I can't even stock it in my Grade 8 classroom. The profanity, as you might expect, is both plentiful and colorful, but the line really gets crossed when we follow the white perpetrator to prison, where he engages in some hair-raising exchanges with black prisoners, replete with references to unsavory prison practices that Johnny and Suzie's parents might not appreciate in an independent reading book. Oh, well. It won't be the last expenditure wasted in that sense. This one goes to the Salvation Army instead of the classroom library. At least there's a positive message in the end. I like to think that some kid, somewhere, will benefit from that.