More of a teaching tool than a great novel, I think. It had plenty of the ingredients for an outstanding read, but didn't come together for me.

If you want to learn about the Civil Rights Movement in 1968 from the perspective of a 13-year-old boy whose father is a peaceful leader alongside MLK, and whose older brother is joining the Black Panther Party, this book succeeds. But if you're looking to read a really great story, not so much. I learned a lot from reading it, but I can't say I enjoyed it very much.

The language of book is elegant and thoughtful (though, in my copy, chapter 12 started with a typo: a big W instead of a T, turning "the" into "whe"). But the plot relentlessly hits you with terrible injustice after terrible injustice. The main character, Sam, is constantly hurt, confused, angry, scared--so much so, it's hard to connect with him. He never knows what to think or what to do. Some people may not be bothered by that because it's realistic. But I like my main characters to have a stronger perspective, so they don't just get blown around like a leaf in the wind through the entire book.

The other main characters in this book (Sam's father Roland, his brother Stick, Sam's girlfriend Maxie, his friend Bucky, his mother, and Stick's Black Panther friends) are all good and well-intentioned people caught in a seemingly hopeless battle for equality. The story's villains (racist white people, usually cops) are all exceedingly evil and one-dimensional. It's easy to hate the bad guys, but hard to choose which good guys you want to follow. The non-violent MLKers who organize demonstrations or the gun-carrying Panthers who provide breakfast and free clinics for black communities? I wasn't drawn into this MLK vs. Panther conflict because they both seemed like good options. It would be interesting fodder for debate among students, though.

There's a lot of violence in this book, almost all of it senseless and horrifying. So this is definitely something to recommend to mature readers, probably 7th grade and up. ( )

This is an amazing story about the Civil Rights movement and the Black Panthers as told through the eyes of a thirteen year old boy, Sam, whose father is working with Dr. Martin Luther King and doesn't want his sons to join the Black Panthers. ( )

It's the 'hood in Chicago during one of the most tumultuous years in race relations, 1968. Roland Childs is a disciple and friend of Martin Luther King, while his two boys struggle with the slow progress of non-violence. Older brother Stick joins the Black Panther Party, while younger brother Sam struggles with which group he wants to join. Peaceful protests turn violent, and a close friend of the boys is jailed because of his skin color. While Magoon did reasonably well with the family strife and friendships as well as framing the different approaches to protest, the book did not do well capturing the atmosphere of despair on the ghettos, which resulted in the Black Power movement. ( )

In 1968 Chicago, Sam's father is a well-known supporter and speaker on the civil rights movement as well as a colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King. He has always emphasized to his boys the importance of non-violent protest. But Sam's older brother Stick finds this method ineffective for the change that needs to be made and he is drawn to the ideals of the Black Panthers. Sam finds himself caught in the middle and unsure of his own path during this historic time. The prose can be melodramatic at times, but it is an intensely convincing and realistic story about a black teen's familial and personal turmoil during an unsettling era. ( )

RGG: Somewhat dry, and perhaps unclear, depiction of the conflict between the followers of Martin Luther King and the followers of the Black Panther movement as represented by a father and two brothers. The story is slow, the narrator, the younger brother, is unexciting despite his romance, and the distinctions between the two points of view during the Civil Rights movement is superficial. Reading Level: 12-14.