Monster
Myers, Walter Dean, 2001.
Monster.
New York: Amistad Press.
281 pages, paperback.
$8.99
ISBN 9780064407311.
Format: alternate format bookRating: 5.0/5.0 stars
Plot Summary
Steve Harmon is sixteen years old, black, and an inner city kid who is now on trial for felony murder. Petrocelli, the prosecutor, is calling him a “monster.”
Steve’s opening journal entry shares how it is best to cry when someone else is being beaten or screaming, so no one will hear the sobs, what his cell looks like, how none of this feels real – his being a prisoner.
To further distance himself from this entire surreal experience, he decides to document this experience by writing a screenplay. He goes so far as to envision his film shared at this high school, reviewed by his peers in a film workshop.
Petrocelli opens to the jury, outlining how they planned the robbery, how Mr. Nesbitt had only pulled his gun to protect himself and his drugstore, how the gun went off and a prominent member of the community died as a result.
This is the story of Steve Harmon, his life and his murder trial…fade to black.
Critical Evaluation
Monster begins with our main character: Steve Harmon in a jail cell realizing that it feels more like he just walked into a movie in progress. Myers' blend of journal to tell the back story, before the shooting and imprisonment combined with the screenwriting of the present story, the jail experience and court room drama presents readers with so many facets of who Steve is, gaining him both pity and compassion by his readers. Written in realistic street-speak fashion, readers also see another element to that shows who our main character. Chris Myers’ illustrative use of grainy images and blurred or pixilated graphics further extends Steve’s story and depicts a side that may never be fully revealed.
Myers’ use of handwritten journal entries is effective for the language and how the font sizes shift, allowing readers to absorb every word more carefully. Myers technique of the scenes in the screenplay are more rapid fire, not allowing readers a moment’s rest – like the quickening of a pulse when scared is brilliant and quite effective.
Overall, Monster is a convincing story, one of truth, fear, and humanity - one that only Myers could have written so powerfully, while leaving a thread of doubt with every reader.
Reader’s Annotation
Steve Harmon is black, sixteen years old, in jail, and on trial for felony murder, which is as bad as it gets. He was only supposed to be the lookout, he wasn’t supposed to be part of robbery, and nobody was supposed to die. As an aspiring filmmaker, Steve decides to make his entire experience into a film and name it what the prosecutor calls him in court: Monster.
Information About the Author
Walter Dean Myers was born in 1937 in West Virginia and given to a man named Herbert Dean and his wife to raise, in Harlem. His neighborhood and the church were strong influences growing up. He dropped out of school and joined the army when he turned seventeen, but not before promising one of his teacher’s that he’d keep writing.
Years later, he remembered that promise and began writing after work at night, mostly about his most difficult years – his teen years.
Myers is the New York Times bestselling author of Monster, winner of the first Michael L. Printz award, and Harlem, a Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor Book. The inaugural recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, he is considered one of the preeminent writers for children. He lives in New Jersey with his family.
(Myers, 2011) and (Amazon, Monster, 2011).
Genre
Fiction: Issues – crime and legal issues
Read-Alikes
Search for Safety by John Langan
No Way Out by Peggy Kern
Curriculum Ties
Monster is used each year in English 10 to study alternate formats, following a poetry unit that demonstrates the use of both journals and screenwriting.
Booktalking Ideas
1) two-voice narration: one sharing Steve in his jail cell the other his inner voice giving him grief for trying to hide out under his blanket like it will all just go away
2) Petrocelli in courtroom (prosecution) outlining the case, with a whispered MONSTER repeated in the background
Book Trailer Links
Book Trailer by a Reader
Reading Level/Interest Age
Grades 7 and up /
Challenge Issues
robbery, murder, prison
First, I would share some of the recommendations used as part of the selection process, including reviews from resources as noted below. Next, I would point out the value in allowing these types of materials to be optional reading as teens grow ever closer to adulthood and making their own decisions. Finally, following our school district’s policy #KEC, after explaining that our school district’s philosophy is that no parent or group of parents has the right to determine the reading matter for children other than their own, I would refer the parent or community member to the building principal, so that he/she can file a written complaint to begin the process of review.
Awards
Michael L Printz Award, 2000
Coretta Scott King Honor Book, 2000
National Book Award Finalist, 1999
Parent's Guide to Children's Media Honors
Publisher's Weekly Best Books, 1999
Horn Book Honor Book
Why Title Included & Selection Tools
I love several elements of this book: first, that it is written like a screenplay and a journal so that it has a surreal kind of presence with readers, and that I can still challenge students who have read it to prove the ending and most are never 100% of sure of his guilt or innocence.
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