This is a surprising book. Three boys of color attend a charter school, the Urban Promise Preparatory, for boys only who have been given up on by the regular schools. It used to be a fun place, but recently there have been new rules. Those rules include no talking to the other boys, walking only on a blue line painted on the hallway floors, sitting down and standing up in class as a group. These new rules are supposed to make the boys more cohesive, but they only serve to alienate the boys more. The principal, Mt. Moore, has become more erratic recently, also. He is rushed, rude, autocratic and smells of alcohol.
We are concerned with three seniors, JB, Ramon and Trey. On the day of the basketball team's big game, all three get detention. This is serious because Trey is the best player on the team. If Mr. Moore weren't so off his usual self, he wouldn't have sent, at least, Trey to detention and kept him out of the game. Of course, the boys don't stay in detention. Mr. Moore is shot and killed that afternoon, and the three boys are "persons of suspicion". One or more of them must have killed the principal. They each claim they did not do the shooting, but they are not believed.
The story is about the efforts of the boys, separately and together, to prove they are innocent and find out who did the deed. It shows how difficult that is when the system is set against boys of color. We must believe they succeed, or else why read the book. It's how they succeed that makes the story so interesting.
I really enjoyed the book, which I received from the publishers through Netgalley in exchange for this review.
We are concerned with three seniors, JB, Ramon and Trey. On the day of the basketball team's big game, all three get detention. This is serious because Trey is the best player on the team. If Mr. Moore weren't so off his usual self, he wouldn't have sent, at least, Trey to detention and kept him out of the game. Of course, the boys don't stay in detention. Mr. Moore is shot and killed that afternoon, and the three boys are "persons of suspicion". One or more of them must have killed the principal. They each claim they did not do the shooting, but they are not believed.
The story is about the efforts of the boys, separately and together, to prove they are innocent and find out who did the deed. It shows how difficult that is when the system is set against boys of color. We must believe they succeed, or else why read the book. It's how they succeed that makes the story so interesting.
I really enjoyed the book, which I received from the publishers through Netgalley in exchange for this review.