May 4, 2015
It’s 1983, and best friends Nike and Smiles are working as camp counselors at a church in the South Bronx. This summer, there’s friction, since Smiles transferred to a Manhattan private school, leaving Nike behind. As they approach senior year, Smiles realizes how his education has changed him, wrestling with what W.E.B. Du Bois called “double consciousness”—a foot in two worlds, an outsider in both. Nike’s problems are less philosophical: neighborhood gangsters are after him, and he’s in love with a girl who keeps him at arm’s length, something the stylish break-dancer isn’t used to. The boys take turns narrating in a Bronx patois (“I couldn’t ruin my fly outfits with those fugly Sasquatch rentals with the fat orange wheels and matching toe stop,” says Nike, who brings his own skates to a roller rink), and Quintero’s (Efrain’s Secret) novel brims with crises of the day: budget cuts brought on by Reaganomics, war in the Middle East, AIDS, and the crack
epidemic. Readers who settle into its rhythms will find a compelling story about how impossibly hard it can be to simply grow up. Ages 12–up.
May 15, 2015
Academic ambition and hip-hop intersect in the South Bronx, where two friends spend a summer growing up and, unwillingly, apart.Quintero details the summer of 1983, when the teens work what appears to be their final summer together as camp counselors. Raymond "Smiles" King is a smart, ambitious black teenager who has recently lost his mom to sickle cell anemia, and Guillermo "Nike" Vega is a Nuyorican Casanova and break-dancer who attempts to woo beautiful Sara, a new, mysterious girl in their neighborhood. Break-dancing and hip-hop are barely keeping their friendship together; shootings, neighborhood thugs, girls, and separate schools are no help. Racial and religious tensions are high not just in the Bronx, but in the Middle East, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is killing thousands, and all the while, the fear of AIDS is ever growing. Writing in an alternating first-person narrative, Quintero masters the characters' colloquialisms and voices-Smiles is sensitive, self-aware, and Nike is hot-tempered, quick to challenge; both aspire to better lives. Quintero's ability to deliver musical references, knowledge of 1980s vernacular, and b-boy jargon rivals Nike's acrobatic, intricate footwork. Aside from a couple moments of misused Spanish, the Puerto Rican slang is in tune. The story is powerful and thought-provoking, an homage to a climactic hip-hop era, when friends are caught between aspirations and predetermined social disadvantages. A must-read for fans of Walter Dean Myers' All the Right Stuff and other lovers of proud urban realism. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)
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December 1, 2015
Gr 8 Up-Set in the Bronx during the summer of 1983, this novel thrusts readers into a world of hip-hop, racial tensions, Reaganomics, and war in the Middle East. Growing concerns over drugs, poverty, and gangs also have a strong impact on 16-year-old protagonists Smiles and Nike. Told in alternating voices, this first-person narrative is set in the boys' community and at their job at a local summer day camp. Smiles lives with his father and Jamaican-born grandmother, and they are grieving the death of his mother. He is disgruntled that the white students at his elite preparatory high school refuse to recognize his intelligence and angered that he is not hired as a senior camp counselor. Worse still, Smiles is rejected from the Five Percenters' Center for young black males since his family is stable. Nike, of Puerto Rican descent, lives with his mother and younger sister and resents their low-income dependency on welfare. Break dancing is his escape, as well as wearing stylish clothes and flirting with girls. Nike dreams of winning a dance contest to gain status, a future career, and the heart of beautiful, sweet Sarah, all the while hiding from the local gang leader's wrath. Both boys must demonstrate their loyalty and integrity in this poignant yet gritty coming-of-age book set in an era not often depicted in teen literature. This text requires readers to work and possibly complete research to comprehend its important social, historical, and cultural references. VERDICT For libraries looking to diversify their YA historical fiction collections.-Ruth Quiroa, National Louis University, IL
Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2015
Grades 7-10 The strongly realized settingthe South Bronx during the summer of 1983is as much a character in Quintero's new novel as are her coprotagonists, Smiles and Nike. The point of view alternates between them from chapter to chapter as they recount their respective stories. Best friends, both are employed by a neighborhood day camp. Smiles is angry because the job of head counselor has gone to his erstwhile friend, Cookie, instead of him. Suspecting racial prejudice is the cause (he's black; Cookie is Puerto Rican), Smiles becomes increasingly interested in helping start an Islamic center in the neighborhood. As for the less serious Nike, he dreams of winning a major hip-hop dance competition, even as he is falling in love with the demure, secretive Sara, another employee of the camp. There is a great deal going on in this crowded coming-of-age novelperhaps too much, as each boy's story could have made a novel in itself. Nevertheless, the characters are well realized and grow through their experiences, while the setting provides insight into an interesting historical moment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
September 1, 2015
The summer of 1983 looks promising for Raymond Smiles King and Guillermo Nike Vega. They're both working as camp counselors at a summer enrichment program in their South Bronx neighborhood. Smiles is crushed when he loses out on a promotion to senior counselor; he then struggles to work with a camper who speaks only Spanish, sure that the assignment is a practical joke played by the new senior counselor, Cookie. Nike is concerned with getting new girl Sara to fall for him, and he thinks that winning a break-dancing competition is the ticket. As the summer goes on, neighborhood tensions build and secrets come to light, from budget concerns at camp to racial and religious conflicts among Puerto Ricans, West Indians, and Palestinians. Nike fights with his mother over her decision to live on welfare and not seek employment, meaning that his pay as a camp counselor is essential to the family's well-being. Smiles is drawn to neighborhood mentor Qusay, member of the Nation of Gods and Earths, a breakaway sect of the Nation of Islam. Told in alternating voices, the book features two vibrant, fully realized narrators with complex lives; a distinct, memorable supporting cast; and a complete immersion in the zeitgeist of the early eighties, from music to politics. sarah hannah gomez
(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
February 1, 2017
Gr 8 Up-Set in 1983 in the South Bronx, this coming-of-age tale by Afro-Latina Quintero presents the friendship between African American Smiles and Puerto Rican Nike against the backdrop of hip-hop, Reaganomics, and war in the Middle East. Quintero explores the racial tensions but also collaborations that flourish between the Latino and Black community with a deft hand. Teens will be fully immersed in the 80s setting.
Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.