The Barnes & Noble Review
Highly popular YA writer Walter Dean Myers takes a slightly different tack than usual by penning memories of his oft-troubled childhood in the aptly titled Bad Boy. Growing up in the 1940s in Harlem proved to be a mixed bag for Myers, one filled with both opportunities and obstacles. From gang warfare and racism to the dark secret his father kept for years, Myers's tale is a testament to the power of love, hope, and perseverance.

Though Myers's natural mother died shortly after he was born, leaving him with no memories of her, his father's second wife stepped in to fill the role. Even as a toddler, Myers showed signs of being problematic. Though everyone generally agreed he was bright, he was also restless, curious, and prone to fighting. From the time he entered kindergarten until the day he missed his graduation because he'd been skipping school so long he didn't realize the year had ended, Myers was a challenge to his parents, teachers, and even some of his friends. Some of his problems stemmed from a severe speech impediment, which often masked his intelligence and made communication with others difficult. But in addition to that -- or perhaps, at times, because of it -- Myers showed little respect for authority, endured severe bouts of depression, and hung out with several questionable characters he called friends. The one constant in his life, which also ultimately proved to be his salvation, was his love of books and writing, a love that obviously continued into adulthood.

Like the stories he writes, Myers's tale serves as a testament to the power of possibilities and potential, even when faced with the greatest of odds. Any teenager who's ever felt lost, persecuted, or misunderstood can relate to Myers's experiences and can take heart from his ultimate triumph over several types of adversity. (Beth Amos)

This memoir joins the ranks of stellar literary autobiographies, such as Fleischman's Abracadabra Kid and Zindel's Pigman and Me.

A thoughtful, cautionary and inspiring tale.

Many of the individual scenes have power…and the author's voice and heart are consistently heard and felt throughout.

A powerful read. Will make the reader laugh out loud & sigh with satisfaction.

Myers paints a fascinating picture of his childhood growing up in Harlem in the 1940s, with an adult's benefit of hindsight, wrote PW. What emerges is a clear sense of how one young man's gifts separate him from his peers, causing him to stir up trouble in order to belong. Ages 13-up. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Myers paints a fascinating picture of his childhood growing up in Harlem in the 1940s, with an adult's benefit of hindsight. His previous 145th Street: Short Stories conveys a more vivid sense of day-to-day life on Harlem's streets, and readers learn little here of the effects of global events (such as WWII). What they will come away with is a sense of how a gifted young man, both intellectually and athletically, feels trapped in his own mind as he tries to find a place for himself in the world. Some insightful teachers make a huge difference in his life: a fifth-grade teacher who avails Walter of her classroom library; his sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Lasher, who recognizes the boy's leadership qualities; and a high school English teacher who spots him outside the guidance counselor's office and says, "Whatever happens, don't stop writing." Perhaps the most poignant and carefully crafted chapter involves the 16-year-old's thought process in response to his guidance counselor's question, "Do you like being black?" Throughout the volume, Myers candidly examines the complexities of being black in America, from his first exposure to slavery in a seventh grade American history class, to the painful realization in adolescence that his blond, blue-eyed best friend is invited to parties where Walter is not welcome. Other chapters sometimes feel haphazard (a foreshadowing of Walter's discovery that his father is illiterate, for example, undercuts a powerful later scene that explores this more fully). What emerges is a clear sense of how one young man's gifts separate him from his peers, causing him to stir up trouble in order to belong. Fortunately, this bad boy turned out to be a fine writer. Ages 12-up. (May) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Gr 9 Up-This recording of Walter Dean Myers' autobiography (HarperCollins, 2001) will engage those familiar with his fiction as well as those who have not read Motown and Didi (Viking, 1984), Fallen Angels (Scholastic, 1988), the Printz-winning Monster (HarperCollins, 2001), or any of his other children's and young adult literature. Actor Joe Morton reads smoothly and with subtle inflections that augment passages producing shared laughter or horror with the storyteller's view of events. Bad Boy recounts Myers' roots; his unofficial but permanent adoption as a toddler; how his mother planted and nurtured his life-long love of reading; the academic trials and victories he met in his Harlem grade school and accelerated junior high years; and the deleterious combination of speech impediment, depression, racism and alienation he experienced through his high school career. Eventually, he left school, without a diploma, to serve a stint in the army, followed by a decade of manual labor, before rediscovering his writer's voice and strengths. In addition to providing a chronology of Myers' personal growth and offering insights on the times, his autobiography is rich with references to the many books he found through teachers, librarians, and his own browsings. His introductions to such works as Camus' The Stranger are presented in a manner sure to entice teens to borrow from the Myers canon. With a bit of music to announce the beginning and end of each cassette's side, the production quality is befitting of this major new literary work.- Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Catalogues of books alternate with battles against educational authorities in this memoir from one of the deans of young-adult literature. Myers (The Journal of Biddy Owens) paints a picture of a boy in love with words, an avid reader, and later an enthusiastic writer, but also one whose quick, violent temper kept him in constant trouble. From a cozy childhood in the embrace of his foster parents to an alienated and depressed adolescence, Myers consciously sets out to identify those elements that made him what he is: a black writer of books for all children. One of the book's strengths, no surprise, is its careful and loving depiction of Harlem's black community, and readers familiar with Myers's other work will recognize in many of the figures and situations he describes the inspirations for his fiction. Another is Myers's wry commentary on his youthful actions and attitudes: when describing his spiritual uncertainty, for instance, he writes, "I wanted to hear a big voice on the phone say ‘Yea, verily, this is me, God. It's all good, my man, and will be ultracool in the end.' " No life can be as tightly plotted as a novel, though, and the text sometimes moves unevenly from anecdote to unrelated (albeit interesting) anecdote, hindering a smooth narrative flow. His attempt to show how his life was constructed, moreover, results in a rather deterministic text from which one has the sense that much was left out, and his musings on the effects of institutionalized racism on his development as a young man and a writer become didactic interruptions plunked into a story which likely could speak for itself. Myers is arguably one of the most important writers of children's books of our age, however, and this glimpse into his own childhood is wonderfully valuable, fascinating, and even inspiring.