Dark Dude by Oscar Hijuelos

Hijuelos, O. (2008). Dark dude. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

ISBN-13: 978-1-41694-804-9

Plot Summary

Fifteen-year-old Rico is the “palest Cubano who ever existed on the planet.” He loves comic books and dreams of being a writer. However, his New York City neighborhood increasingly makes life difficult. His family is struggling to survive, and Rico must attend a dismal Harlem public high school. When his “big brother” Gilberto miraculously strikes it rich playing the lottery, he makes a huge impression on Rico by showing him the peaceful landscape picture of the college he enrolls in as a way of getting out of the neighborhood without going to Vietnam. On the other hand, Rico’s other good friend Jimmy, an artist, turns to drugs as a different means of escape. Deciding to leave the inner city and a hopeless life behind, Rico and Jimmy hitchhike their way from Harlem to the promising pastures of Wisconsin, the land of milk and honey. Rico compares his new life to his life in New York and wonders if he made the right decision.

Critical Evaluation

The setting of Dark Dude is important to the story. Rico lives in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. New York City itself is rich with many ethnicities that historically are in constant conflict with each other: Peurto Rican, Cuban, African-American, Jewish, and Irish. When Rico’s best friend displays the Wisconsin college brochure, the stark contrast between the dirty inner city New York and the rolling green hills of Eden-esque Wisconsin are obvious. The book’s division into Rico’s first person narration of his life is dotted with humor throughout Dark Dude. One example is when he decides to stay away from his Harlem school, which they referred to as Jo Mama’s (demonstrating total lack of respect), as much as possible: “I just couldn’t go back to Jo Mama’s on a regular basis. It was like an antimagnetic thing, and I was a piece of metal” (115). This kind of humor balances out the conflicts he faces with stride. Many of the conflicts are a result of his skin color. He is Cuban, but instead of having dark skin and eyes, he is pale with freckles and hazel eyes. As a result, he does not fit in with any group. Readers will connect with Rico’s desire to be accepted as part of a group and his conflict of identity. Readers will also appreciate Rico’s desire to get out of the problems that plague his life through whatever means it takes. Readers will also understand the theme that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, everyone has problems; it’s how you deal with them that counts.

 

Reader’s Annotation

 

Fifteen-year-old Rico feels out of place in his Harlem neighborhood because of his light skin and his aspirations to be a writer. Hoping to find a better life, he runs away and finds his life’s purpose.

 

Author Information

 

Oscar Hijuelos was born August 24, 1951 in New York City. He is the son of Cuban immigrants and his experiences influence his writing; his books explore life as a Hispanic in America. His first novel, Our House in the Last World (1983), is about a Cuban family living in 1940s America and received much critical praise. However, it was The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989) that earned him international recognition. In 1990, Hijuelos received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Mambo Kings.

Hijuelos has been a National Book Award nominee, has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Rome Fellowship and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation as well as the National Endowment for the arts. He currently lives in New York City but spends part of his time in Durham, North Carolina, where he is a visiting professor at Duke. Dark Dude is his first young adult novel. Of it, Hijuelos says, “This is the kind of book I wish I’d read when I was a teen.”

More information about Oscar Hijuelos can be found where I found this information at Biography.com:

http://www.biography.com/people/oscar-hijuelos-188849

Genre

Young adult

Coming of Age

Historical Fiction

Curriculum Ties

Vietnam War, Cuban immigration to the United States

Book Talking Ideas

What are your goals for the future? What do you want to be?

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Characters are in high school; appropriate for ages 15 and up

Challenge Issues

Drug use, language

Challenge Defense

If this book were challenged, I would refer to these reviews and consult ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

Booklist starred 11/01/08

Publishers Weekly starred 09/01/08

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 10/01/08

School Library Journal 11/01/08

Horn Book 04/01/09

Voice of Youth Advocates (V.O.Y.A.) 10/01/08

Kirkus Review 09/01/08

Wilson's Senior High School 06/01/10

Why did I include this title?

I enjoy reading anything about New York City. Having lived there for a short time myself, I can appreciate the tension between the ethnic groups. I enjoyed reading about the Harlem neighborhood with the street numbers and bodegas. This novel paints a vivid picture of Harlem life, yet it does so in an endearing way. Anyone reading this novel will be able to connect with Rico’s struggle to find his way in life.

The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci

Plum-Ucci, C. (2000). The body of christopher creed. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

ISBN-13: 978-0-15-206386-3

Plot Summary

Torey Adams spends his senior year away from his hometown of Steepleton, and away from his friends, at Rothborne, a boarding school. He could not bear to face the people there after what happened in the woods. During his junior year, a socially awkward classmate whom he had punched out in the sixth grade and had not spoken much to since, disappeared. That was the year Christopher Creed, after sending an email to the school’s principal indicating his either running away or suicide, went missing. Now, in the aftermath, most of Torey’s friends at school, including his girlfriend, take Christopher’s disappearance lightly, too lightly for Torey who feels bad for Christopher. Torey befriends Ali and her boyfriend, Bo, and together they launch a plot to find out more information about Christopher and find him. When their plan backfires, Torey explores the woods behind his house because a psychic had told him he would find Christopher in the woods. Torey enters an ancient Indian burial ground, breaks his leg, and stumbles into an underground cave. There are wrapped Indian bodies as well as an unwrapped body that is newer. At first, Torey believes it to be Chris, but then realizes it is Bob Haines before the air causes it to disintegrate. Christopher Creed remains missing.

Critical Evaluation

Told in flashback and first person narration, The Body of Christopher Creed begins with Torey in his new school recalling events that occurred the year prior and still searching for information. The flashback creates a frame of the story with the beginning and ending taking place in the same location; perhaps the significance is that a person’s past will always affect them and you cannot truly get away from it as Torey wanted to do by finishing high school somewhere else. The reader sees the world through Torey’s eyes and watches as he changes. Torey is a well-developed, dynamic character. In the beginning, he is judgmental of the “boon,” those students from the wrong side of town, but later, he begins to see them in a different light and ultimately changes his idea of who his friends are. Other labels the high school students apply to each other, such as jock and nerd, are common in real life as well. Perhaps readers will be able to see how being labeled affects a person’s actions; the primary example is, of course, Christopher Creed, labeled as an outsider, who essentially creates a separate, imaginary identity for himself and ultimately is pushed outside of reality by disappearing. Readers will be able to recognize a Christopher Creed in any school they attend. The framework of the story also adds a touch of irony: in searching for the missing Christopher Creed, Torey himself goes missing by attending the boarding school. Readers might see how people’s actions affect others in ways they might not be aware of and that what people believe to be true is just that, their perception. Torey, as well as the reader, will see that some mysteries will never be solved. The trick is in discovering how we get over them once they have changed our lives and move on.

Reader’s Annotation

 

High school junior Torey Adams seems to have a perfect life. When Christopher Creed, the socially awkward school outcast, mysteriously disappears, he struggles with doubts and questions that lead him to a dramatic realization. Her father and paternal grandmother operated funeral homes and much of her imagination can be attributed to lying awake at night above the funeral parlor and wondering what the noises were downstairs.

 

Author Information

 

Carol Plum-Ucci was born August 16, 1957 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As she was growing up, she always knew she wanted to be a writer. Her father and paternal grandmother operated funeral homes and much of her imagination can be attributed to lying awake at night above the funeral parlor and wondering what the noises were downstairs. In fact, one of her favorite memories was of taking her friends down into the funeral home and telling them there was a body there to scare them when, in fact, there really was a body down there (I love her humor). Plum-Ucci attended Purdue University where she received her BA in communication in 1979 and then received her Masters degree from Rutgers. She worked as Assistant Producer to the Miss America Pageant in 1984. She has also been a ghostwriter, critic, speechwriter, and essayist. Her most famous work is The Body of Christopher Creed, for which she won the Printz Honor Book Award in 2002. It was also named as a finalist for the Edgar Allen Poe Award.

Plum-Ucci very actively communicates with her readers. She strongly encourages them to contact her for help writing. She welcomes students and teachers to Skype her. She speaks at many schools. Plum-Ucci also takes local school interns during the summer months.

For more information about Carol Plum-Ucci, including what her favorite songs are, please visit her website:

http://www.carolplumucci.com/index.html

If you enjoyed The Body of Christopher Creed, you will be happy to know that there is finally a sequel. Following Christopher Creed was published September 6, 2011.

ISBN-13: 978-0-15-204759-7

Yay!

Genre

Young Adult

Mystery

Running away

Suicide

 

Curriculum Ties

Lenape Indians, burial grounds

Book Talking Ideas

Mental illness, burial grounds

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Characters are in high school; appropriate for grades 9 and up

Challenge Issues

Has been challenged for age-appropriateness.

Challenge Defense

In defense of a challenge, I would cite these reviews as well as ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library Materials.

Book Report 11/01/00

Notable/Best Books (A.L.A.) 01/19/01

Booklist 03/15/01

Publishers Weekly 05/22/00

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 04/01/00

School Library Journal starred 07/01/00

Kirkus Review 05/15/00

Voice of Youth Advocates (V.O.Y.A.) 08/01/00

Why did I include this title?

I first read The Body of Christopher Creed and was moved by it. I recognized many of the characters as the same types of people I went to school with, and Christopher Creed could have been any number of outcasts I knew. It made me think about my own actions towards them. This book is a great mystery and the scene in the Indian burial ground still replays in my mind even today.