Module 3: Lockdown, by Walter Dean Myers

Summary: Lockdown is the story of Reese Anderson, a juvenile offender serving time at a facility called Progress. With good behavior, Reese has a chance of getting out of Progress early, but he’s having a hard time. When Reese tries to defend a smaller kid at Progress, the other guys pick fights with Reese, and the patients at the retirement facility where Reese works give him a hard time. And, just when Reese thinks he’s on his way to early release, he finds himself facing new charges, and in danger of spending several more years behind bars. Will Reese get a second chance, or will he be in lockdown for good?

Reference: Myers, W.D. (2010). Lockdown. New York, NY: Harper Collins Children’s Books.

Impressions: This book is a little slow, but I really liked the character of Reese, who wants to get out of Progress so that he can support his little sister, and help her go to college. Myers does a really good job of showing how young people get trapped in the justice system, and how those consequences influence not only a child’s future, but also their sense of self, and of self-worth.

Review: Maurice "Reese" Anderson is sentenced to 38 months in Progress, a juvenile detention center in New York, for stealing prescription forms for use in a drug-dealing operation. After 22 months, Reese, now age 14, is assigned to a work-release program at Evergreen, an assisted-living center for seniors. There he meets racist Mr. Hooft, who lectures him on life's hardships (having barely survived a Japanese war camp in Java), which causes Reese to reflect on his own choices. More than anything, he wants to be able to protect his siblings, who live with his drug-addicted mother, before they repeat his mistakes ("The thing was that I didn't know if I was going to mess up again or not. I just didn't know. I didn't want to, but it looked like that's all I did"). Reese faces impossible choices and pressures--should he cop to a crime he didn't commit? stick out his neck for a fellow inmate and risk his own future? It's a harrowing, believable portrait of how circumstances and bad decisions can grow to become nearly insurmountable obstacles with very high stakes. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)

Lockdown (review). 2010. Publisher’s Weekly 257(2), 49. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2200/ehost/pdfviewer/.

Suggested Use:  This book would be good to include in a book talk about realistic fiction suggestions. Besides featuring believable, interesting characters, I think Myers does a great job of representing the perspective of a young person who feels defeated by the justice system, and some of the problems that might lead to such a state. I think it would be easy script a book talk that attracts young readers to this book, and could bring some valuable perspective to a discussion.