Response - Hardcover

Paul Volponi is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novel Black & White. From 1992 to 1998, he taught adolescents on Rikers Island in New York City to read and write. Mr. Volponi worked at a day treatment center like Daytop teaching students and helping them prepare for the GED. Mr. Volponi lives in New York City.

Grade 6–10—Seventeen-year-old Noah and his two buddies go to an Italian-American neighborhood, intent on stealing a car to sell for parts. Instead, some thugs target the African-American teens and beat Noah's head in with a baseball bat. The unrepentant bat wielder, Charlie Scaturro, and his cohorts are charged with a hate crime. His cousin Spenelli confesses and the third boy, the son of a police officer, testifies to avoid prosecution. At Noah's mostly black school, white kids wear "Free Spenelli" T-shirts and the gym teacher is a vicious, obvious bigot. All of the basher's Italian-American friends and family are unabashedly racist. Volponi presents Noah's life as a student, son, and teen father simply though not simplistically. The dialogue between the protagonist and his buddies and family is occasionally precious, but mostly natural. Volponi interjects film-script dialogue of events in prison, and in Charlie's head. Though these episodes highlight Charlie's narcissism, they detract from the (mildly) suspenseful mood and slow the pace of the narrative. The racism in this town is so vicious and public, so over-the-top that it's hard to see the white, mostly Italian Americans as anything but caricatures. Though it's certainly easy to believe the events of this story, Volponi's portrayal is never wholly convincing.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
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