Module 5 - Lockdown

Lockdown, by Walter Dean Myers

Summary

This is the story of Reese, a 15 year old boy, sentenced to a youth detention facility called Progress.  Reese wants to get out as soon as possible so he is trying to stay out of trouble, but he keeps getting into fights.  These fights result in "lockdown."  He is isolated, he cannot leave, but the good thing is, no one can enter.  He feels safe.  While involved in a work release program, Reece meets Mr. Hooft.  He learns that there are many ways a person can be in "lockdown" even if they are not in prison.  Mr. Hooft teaches Reece some valuable lessons.

Myers, W. (2010). Lockdown. New York City: Harper Collins.

My Impression

This is a gritty book that helps individuals see how difficult life can be for young men or women that have a good heart, but do not have resources or support for success.  I like the reality that the book portrays.  Reece learns valuable insights from Mr. Hooft; however, when he leaves prison, life is still difficult.  There is not really a happy ending.

Reviews

“That’s what I wanted to do, to fit in and be nobody special.” That’s the goal of Reese, short for Maurice, who’s allowed out of his juvenile corrective facility for work-release shifts at Evergreen, a residential facility for the elderly. There he sees the kind of normal daily life, of bantering with co-workers and developing buddies, for which he yearns; he also begins to find an unexpected friend in Mr. Hooft, an initially prickly and suspicious resident whose insights and experiences compel Reese to think about his own struggles. And struggles there are aplenty back in the Progress Center, essentially prison for young offenders, where Reese knows he needs to stay out of trouble but can’t bring himself to step aside when gang members make a helpless youngster the target of their violence. There’s much YA literature about kids teetering on the edge of doing juvenile time, but there’s not so much about the realities of youthful incarceration and what it means to one’s personhood and future, issues that Myers tackles with sympathy and authenticity. Reese is a likable guy, particularly in his adoration of his live-wire younger sister, and his situations both at home and at the Progress Center are complicated and unfair; however, he’s not simply a doe-eyed innocent, either. The book gives the minor characters resonance as well, with even a bullying prison guard proving to have some interesting facets, and the relationship between Reese and Mr. Hooft refreshingly avoids cliché with its awkwardness and absence of mutually cathartic confession. Readers who’ve followed Myers’ law-and-order-related sagas in Monster 

(BCCB 5/99) and Dope Sick (BCCB 2/09), among others, will find this a logical next step, and it’s a moving tale of a kid who may have made a mistake but who still deserves the modest future he seeks.  DS

Stevenson, D. (2010). Lockdown. Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 63(7), 298-298. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/223694017?accountid=7113

Fourteen-year-old Reese broke into a doctor's office, stole prescription pads, and sold them to a drug dealer. Now he's in a juvenile detention facility in the Bronx, trying to make the right choices, the ones that will bring him an early release date. Reese has a host of things working against him: a penchant for fighting his fellow inmates, a disadvantaged background, a dysfunctional family (a drug-addicted mother, an absentee father, an older brother running with the wrong crowd). But there are also people who give him hope: a smart younger sister who seems bent on making a better life for herself; a prison superintendent who is able to overlook Reese's problems to see his potential; and, at Reese's work release program, a cantankerous old man with his own troubled past. Myers returns toa familiar milieu to riff on favorite themes: hard luck, second chances, overcoming adversity, living with purpose and determination. JONATHAN HUNT

Hunt, J. (2010). Lockdown. The Horn Book Magazine, 86(2), 65-65. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/199458925?accountid=7113

Suggestions for Use in Library

• Booktalk it!
• Use as a selection for a reading or book club

My