Monster

Steve Harmon is sitting in a juvenile detention center, charged with several others in a botched robbery. Steve has such difficulty dealing with his situation that he resorts to writing in his journal. Soon that proves inefficient, and he begins writing a screenplay of his experience in his cell and during his trial.  It’s back and forth, he said, she said, and everyone is turning on each other. Steve makes it out, found not guilty, but he is still plagued with nagging thoughts. He wonders who he really is, and how this crime will affect him from here on out.

Steve, even being incarcerated, causes the reader to feel for him. You read on hoping to see where his inner thoughts will take him. What soul searching will he find? Even after everything is done, he isn’t celebratory, he continues to search himself. Walter Dean Myers has an uncanny ability to make you care about someone who you really don’t think you should root for.

Chapter 8: Reading Aloud

Librarians are not always afforded the most time when it comes to class schedules, so reading an entire novel can be a daunting experience. In Making the Match by Teri S. Lesesne, she tells of a strategy called the “Read and Tease”, where only the first few sentences, or first chapter of a novel is read. Just enough to peak students’ interests. Monster is in her list of “Good Books for ‘Read and Tease’” (Lesesne pg. 110).  

Myers, W. (1999). Monster. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Lesesne, T. (2003). Making the match the right book for the right reader at the right time, grades 4-12. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse.