Monster By Walter Dean Myers

In a novel from Myers a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with eye grabbing journal entries after each day’s action. Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner, or for something else but I will let that be up to you to find out. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a dull, trapped, frighting prison where most nights he can hear other inmates yelling at each other screaming and dark noises, he reviews each one of the events leading to this point in his life. Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist. The format of this heart moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing, with breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue arranged with thought. These journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s eye closing terror and unique confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s main point of the reading, if you would want to know, you gotta read the book.