[LM_NET] BOOK: Autobiography of My Dead Brother by Myers

[Doyle_Tony <tdoyle@MUHSD.K12.CA.US>]

Autobiography of My Dead Brother by Walter Dean Myers, ill. by Christopher Myers

 

Myers once again brings Harlem to life in the pages of a book.  Ostensibly the book 
is about the narrator's (Jesse) blood-brother Rise but it is really Jesse's story.  
Jesse is a 15 year-old budding artist growing up on the mean streets of uptown New 
York.  Jesse has the loving support of his parents and has talent that can carry 
him far but that does not insulate him from the gangs, drugs, and violence of his 
neighborhood.  The book opens and closes with the funerals of African-American 
teens and in between the violence and desperation of the streets infect the lives 
of the characters and seep into their homes.  Jesse and his musically talented 
friend C.J. nearly succumb to the pressures of the 'hood despite their advantages, 
leading us to ask, if these two promising boys came so close to being pulled down 
what chance does the average kid stand?

 

Rise, though two years older, has been Jesse's best friend since early childhood.  
Jesse has always felt comfortable around Rise and they shared the same values.  But 
as the story begins Jesse begins to notice changes in Rise.  Jesse feels them 
drifting apart and worries about his friend as he spirals downward into the life of 
a drug dealer.  Rise commissions Jesse to write and illustrate his life story.  But 
as the two drift further apart Jesse finds it harder and harder to capture Rise on 
paper.  Jesse's drawing and his philosophical comic strip, "Spodi Roti and Wise," 
appear throughout the book (drawn by Myer's son Christopher) and help bring the 
prose alive.

 

The machinations of Rise and another character, Mason, place Jesse and his friends 
in the middle of a confrontation between a street gang and a vicious group of 
professional drug dealers.  The friends, all members of a revived decades-old 
social club, are portrayed by the media as gang members despite the fact that none 
of them has done anything wrong.  Jesse and C.J. are both overwhelmed and confused 
by speed with which events spin out of control and are pulled along in the wake of 
Rise, Mason and other, bigger players.

 

Readers will feel for Jesse and identify with his confusion and his inability to 
confide some things to his parents despite their close relationship.   Most will 
hunger for a sequel, wanting to know if Jesse makes it and fulfills his great 
promise.  Myers has written another great book.  He and his son have vividly 
illustrated the violence and desperation of inner-city life and they did it without 
gratuitous scenes and without foul language.

 

Highly recommended for grades 8-12.

 
Anthony Doyle, Librarian
Livingston High School
Livingston, CA
tdoyle@MUHSD.K12.CA.US
Http://www.lhswolves.org/library/index.htm
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture; you just have to get people to 
stop reading them."
Ray Bradbury

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