Handbook for Boys: A Novel [Paperback]

Walter Dean Myers (Author), Matthew Bandsuch (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Jimmy and Kevin could really use a guide to life.

Their activities almost land them in juvenile detention until Duke employs them in his Harlem barbershop. Duke has rules for everything. But is he offering good advice or just more aggravation?

In the groundbreaking tradition of the award-winning Monster and Bad Boy: A Memoir, Walter Dean Myers fashions a complex, layered novel about the rules for success. Handbook for Boys is the book that he wishes he could have read while growing up. It is also the book young people need to read today.

Ages 10+

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Returning to the setting for his 145th Street: Short Stories, Myers (Monster) constructs a penetrating profile of a community through the brief appearances of characters who file through Duke Wilson's barbershop. The author juxtaposes a sketch of 16-year-old narrator Jimmy Lynch's home life with nuggets of wisdom delivered by the barber with wit and tact. As the novel opens, Jimmy is about to be assigned to a youth facility for six months, until Duke offers to take him into his "community mentoring program." Initially Jimmy and Kevin, another teen whom Duke mentors, call the shop the "Torture Chamber." But as Jimmy shows up to the shop day after day at 3:30 p.m. to sweep, hang old photographs on the wall and polish spitoons, his anger and resistance erode and he begins to absorb Duke's advice. Organized into chapters with titles as straightforward as "Victims" (featuring a man who is evicted and whose marriage is in trouble because he "just go[es] from day to day to see what event [he] stumble[s] into," in Duke's words) and as humorous as "The Blind Monkey Strut" and "Froggy Goes A Courting," the novel introduces various customers from ex-cons to a millionaire who demonstrate specific life lessons. Jimmy's change in attitude is gradual and credible, and his tenuous friendship with Kevin takes an unexpectedly poignant turn when Kevin falls back into trouble. The author's instructional prefatory note may be offputting, but once inside the book, readers will be hooked. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up-Myers prefaces his new novel with an explanation of his belief that adult mentors can help teens choose positive paths in their lives. The book begins with a judge giving 16-year-old Jimmy the option of being assigned to a juvenile facility for six months for assaulting a classmate or to a community-mentoring program. Of course, he chooses the latter and begins his relationship with Duke Wilson, the owner of a neighborhood barbershop where he will work every day after school. Duke is an older man who, with several of his cronies, tries to give Jimmy and Kevin (another troubled youth) advice about the decisions and paths they will choose as they travel through life. This is imparted by using characters who visit the shop as good or bad examples of people who think independently, who take responsibility for their actions, who are on drugs, or who believe they can solve their own problems. Although the conversations provide valuable life lessons, they come across as didactic and preachy. Much more realistic are the one-on-one scenes between Jimmy and other characters, like his mother and, particularly, his contemporaries. The teen's perspective is the vehicle that carries the story and by book's end readers know he will make it while Kevin has more to learn. Marketed as a work of fiction, the book becomes transparent; as a handbook, it could touch many lives.
Joanne K. Cecere, Monroe-Woodbury High School, Central Valley, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Paperback: 211 pages
• Publisher: Amistad (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064409309
• ISBN-13: 978-0064409308
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Walter Dean Myers is a New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author who has garnered much respect and admiration for his fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. Winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award, he is considered one of the preeminent writers for children. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Barbershop Philosophy, June 30, 2007

By 

A. Luciano (Lowell, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Handbook for Boys: A Novel (Paperback)

Jimmy is a black city kid, living with just his mother. One day he gets into a fight at high school and really does some damage to the other kid. The school takes this fight very seriously, and Jimmy begins to worry that he may have really messed up his life by having the fight. A local man named Duke who owns a barbershop offers to be Jimmy's mentor.

Every day after school, Jimmy goes to the barbershop to clean up and listen to Duke and his old friends talk about the people who come in to get their hair cut. Another high-schooler is also there--Kevin is something of a know-it-all superstar who Duke has promised to send to college in exchange for working at the shop. Kevin is in trouble, too, though, for smoking marijuana and Duke has agreed to mentor him to keep him out of juvenile detention.

As the boys work, they become more annoyed with Duke and his friends. It seems like nobody can come into the shop without Duke and the others saying bad things about him when he leaves. They talk about how the problems these men have are their own fault, and they drag Jimmy and Kevin into discussions about choices and deciding the direction your life is going to take. Jimmy tries to tune them out at first, but then he begins thinking more and more about what they have said. Does he really need a plan so his own life will go the way he wants? Does he know how to get to where he wants to go?

I liked that Duke and his friends were really bright and articulate, and had interesting discussions about free will, philosophy, and the way the world works. I also liked that the city seemed to be portrayed realistically--it gave me a much clearer idea of why so many city kids get lost in the system. It's not always that they aren't trying, it's that they don't have anyone to tell them how to succeed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book by James Dean Myers, September 16, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Handbook for Boys: A Novel (Paperback)

Great book for teenagers. I was reading this book because for my class you have to read a novel by the end of the 1st quarter and each quarter on. I decided to choose this after the information on the back and the cover interested me. I sure didnt waste my money nor my time. It was a great book that deserves alot of credit. I think for Myers this book was alot better than Monster.
Next I probably will be reading the classics;
Elephant Man, Odyssey,Grapes of Wrath, and Huckleberry Finn.

Read this book teens and even adults!
I think its even funner than most video games!
It teaches you lessons about what to do in certain situations!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Handbook for Boys, March 11, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Handbook for Boys: A Novel (Paperback)

Review on Handbook for Boys
By Walter Dean Myers



"What is life about?" This handbook shows young readers what is right and what is wrong, and why it's right or wrong. For example, in the beginning of the book, sixteen year old Jimmy discovers to think carefully about what you're doing and when you're doing it, and to anticipate what's coming next. Another life lesson in this book that seems simple, but most people forget sometimes is that there are more people than yourself. If you decide to if you decide to read this book then look for these morals in each chapter. Even though it's called Handbook for Boys, I would recommend this book to both boys and girls.
What I liked most about this book was it was written so that each individual character's quotes and the things that they said were very detailed. It made it seem like I could hear their voice and pick out whose it was. I also liked the story overall because each scene was very different, and I think that kept it alive. When I picked this book out from the shelf, I thought that it would just be about a boy giving tips on how to act in school or something like that, but Mr. Dean Myers proved me wrong.