From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 18:42:59 -0500

I appreciate Helene's observations. I've believed in Steve's innocence, but now I'm uncertain. Helene pointed out that Steve couldn't make eye contact with his mother. This is significant - to me, anyway. I think I'm changing my mind as a result of the discussion so far.

One of the reasons I was convinced until now that Steve is innocent is due to how he suffers after overhearing the prosecuting attorney refer to him as a "monster." To me this has always been the focus of the novel, rather than whether or not Steve is guilty of the charges. Steve realizes he's been written off in a horrible way by someone who doesn't know him at all or who sees him merely as a black male teenager. In that person's view, Steve is already guilty. Why? Because he's black. It's something like being guilty of "driving while black" or DWB, the term for non-black police pull-overs of black male car drivers. Steve is wrestling with this during the time when his entire life is at stake - innocent or guilty. It seems to me that Myers has delved into this serious, senstive experience of racism, rather than only inviting readers merely to take sides.

What about it? Who else wants to comment about Steve's struggle to maintain his sense of worth as a human being when he knows at least one person has written him off with the term "monster?" ...Ginny


Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Thu 22 Jul 1999 06:42:59 PM CDT