What They Found: Love on 145th Street [Paperback]

Walter Dean Myers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2009

WALTER DEAN MYERS returns to the world of 145th Street: Short Stories to show how love can be found, and thrive, in the most unlikely places. Curtis finds love in Iraq as he struggles to stay alive in a war he doesn't want to fight, and Letha discovers her own beauty in the love of her child. There is the "good daughter" who realizes that there's only one way to help her brother and her family. Other stories center on the daily drama of the Curl-E-Que beauty shop, or capture the slapstick side of passion.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* A neighborhood beauty salon is the setting for lots of the fast, funny talk in these stirring contemporary stories, which nonetheless give a grim view of being "poor and black," whether on the streets of Harlem, in prison, or on the war front in Afghanistan. Rooted in the harsh realism of widespread unemployment, drug use, and trouble ("more brothers going to jail than going to college"), the teens' tender connections are heartbreaking. A single teenage mother loves her baby, and so does the young dad, who wishes he could support them. Some teens are college-bound, but a boy with a high-school diploma can't find work: will he get a gun? Tough gangster Burn is gentle with handicapped kids, but he cannot connect with the girl he loves. In "Mama," a kid who cares for her mom, a recovering addict, and tries to get her brother to preschool turns out to be only eight years old. There are lighter moments, too; in "Poets and Plumbers," Noee feels uncomfortable in Kyle's apartment until she shows him how to unplug his kitchen drain. Each story stands alone, but some are connected, and readers familiar with Myers' 145th Street (2000) will welcome back some characters. Hope lies in what the book title says, finding love and community. Rochman, Hazel --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Starred Review, Booklist, June 1 & 15, 2007:
"Hope lies in what the book title says, finding love and community."
—Hazel Rochman

Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2007:
"Gently told, beautifully modulated, these stories go straight to the heart."

Starred Review, School Library Journal, August 2007:
"Rich in both character and setting, these urban tales combine heartbreak and hope into a vivid tableau of a community. A priority purchase for all libraries, especially those in urban settings."
—Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library

Starred Review, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 2007:
"Grippingly honest ... an extensive and multifaceted look at the culturally nuanced dynamics of finding, holding, and letting go of love."


From the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books; Reprint edition (February 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375845453
• ISBN-13: 978-0375845451
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,233,604 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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, September 11, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What They Found: Love on 145th Street (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed 145th Street: Short Stories when it came out quite a few years ago, so I was anxious to read this new collection of stories. Once again, Walter Dean Myers takes readers into the world on 145th Street. WHAT THEY FOUND revisits the characters of the previous short stories and updates their lives.

The central theme of WHAT THEY FOUND is love. Each story shares a relationship - romantic love, sibling love, parental love, and more. The stories are flavored with Harlem life as only Myers is able to capture.

There's the frustration of loving a brother who is a constant disappointment to the family. Leading a life of drugs and crime takes its toll on love.

There are relationships in the making and relationships beginning to crumble. Myers describes the tough love of women raising babies alone or trying everything to hang onto the father of a child. Some relationships beat the odds stacked against them, while others continue to exist only in dreams.

The final chapter attempts to explain the frightening need for love while facing the world beyond our own front yard. A young soldier from the Harlem neighborhood struggles to survive physically and emotionally in the middle of the violence in Afghanistan. Love offers an oasis from the horrors of war.

Each chapter shares a story and many of them overlap and intertwine as readers are reacquainted with the neighborhood of 145th Street. WHAT THEY FOUND is a welcome companion to the first collection or stands very strongly on its own.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read, August 17, 2008

By 

Katrina L. Burchett "Author of Young Adult Fi... (Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: What They Found: Love on 145th Street (Hardcover)

Fifteen short stories and there wasn't one I didn't like. My favorite was Madonna, the touching story of a teenage mother raising her nine month old son alone:
Letha wanted to know what it was like to have sex, then immediately regretted the choice she had made. Her first time wasn't about love, but she had much love for the child that was conceived. Being poor didn't stop her from taking care of Amari. She did the best she could with what little she had because her son meant the world to her. But although she loved Amari more than anything, she thought of herself as 'nothing special'. It took, Billy Carroll, another teen in the neighborhood, to help her to see her good qualities.