Bad Boy: A Memoir

A classic memoir that's gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable from the bestselling former National Ambassador of Books for Young People. A strong choice for summer reading-an engaging and powerful autobiographical exploration of growing up a so-called ""bad boy"" in Harlem in the 1940s.

As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously-he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer (and he eventually succeeded).

But as his hope for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and to his books for comfort.

Don't miss this memoir by New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers, one of the most important voices of our time.

1004816528
Bad Boy: A Memoir

A classic memoir that's gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable from the bestselling former National Ambassador of Books for Young People. A strong choice for summer reading-an engaging and powerful autobiographical exploration of growing up a so-called ""bad boy"" in Harlem in the 1940s.

As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously-he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer (and he eventually succeeded).

But as his hope for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and to his books for comfort.

Don't miss this memoir by New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers, one of the most important voices of our time.

18.99 In Stock
Bad Boy: A Memoir

Bad Boy: A Memoir

by Walter Dean Myers

Narrated by Joe Morton

Unabridged — 4 hours, 26 minutes

Bad Boy: A Memoir

Bad Boy: A Memoir

by Walter Dean Myers

Narrated by Joe Morton

Unabridged — 4 hours, 26 minutes

Audiobook (Digital)

$18.99
FREE With a B&N Audiobooks Subscription | Cancel Anytime
$0.00

Free with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription | Cancel Anytime

START FREE TRIAL

Already Subscribed? 

Sign in to Your BN.com Account


Listen on the free Barnes & Noble NOOK app


Related collections and offers

FREE

with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription

Or Pay $18.99

Overview

A classic memoir that's gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable from the bestselling former National Ambassador of Books for Young People. A strong choice for summer reading-an engaging and powerful autobiographical exploration of growing up a so-called ""bad boy"" in Harlem in the 1940s.

As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously-he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer (and he eventually succeeded).

But as his hope for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and to his books for comfort.

Don't miss this memoir by New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers, one of the most important voices of our time.


Editorial Reviews

barnesandnoble.com

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)

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

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

Chicago Tribune

A thoughtful, cautionary and inspiring tale.

Horn Book

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

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

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

Publishers Weekly

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.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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.

School Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews

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.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940173599513
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 02/22/2005
Edition description: Unabridged
Age Range: 12 - 17 Years

Read an Excerpt

Bad Boy
A Memoir

Chapter One

Roots

Each of us is born with a history already in place. There are physical aspects that make us brown-eyed or blue-eyed, that make us tall or not so tall, or give us curly or straight hair. Our parents might be rich or poor. We could be born in a crowded, bustling city or in a rural area. While we live our own individual lives, what has gone before us, our history, often has some effect on us. In thinking about what influenced my own life, I began by considering the events and people who came before me. I learned about most of the people who had some effect on my life through family stories, census records, old photographs, and, in the case of Lucas D. Dennis, the records of the Works Progress Administration at the University of West Virginia.

The Works Progress Administration was a government program formed to create jobs during the Depression years. It did this by starting a number of projects, including state histories. Among the notes of the interviewers putting together a history of West Virginia, I came across this entry.

Lucas D. Dennis was one of the one hundred and fifty slaves that Steve Dandridge owned before the Civil War. This slave is ninetyfour years old. He was born in Jefferson County. His mind is very bright, he still has two of his own teeth, his hair is gray and he wears a heavy beard which is also gray.

After the Civil War he came to Harpers Ferry and built himself a house, which is on one of the camping grounds used during the war. This house is on Filmore Ave. and the corner of a lane leading to where many soldiers were buried and later taken up and carried to their burial ground inWinchester.

He lives with his wife, she is eighty-four. He saw John Brown and remembers well the day he was hanged.

Lucas D. Dennis was my great-great uncle. Prior to the Civil War, when West Virginia was still part of the state of Virginia, these ancestors of mine were slaves on a plantation called The Bower in Leetown, Virginia. The 1870 census still listed had Lucas D. Dennis as living on the plantation, but I knew, from family stories, that he did indeed move to Harpers Ferry and that part of the Dennis family moved to Martinsburg, West Virginia, less than ten miles from 'Me Bower. At the time of the interview with Lucas D. Dennis, the Dennis family in Martinsburg had merged with the Green family. One of the women of the Green family, Mary Dolly Green, later became my mother.

I have no memory of Mary Dolly Green. I know that she gave birth to me on a Thursday, the twelfth of August, 1937. 1 have been told that she was tall, with a fair complexion. Mary had five children: Gertrude, Ethel, George, me, and Imogene. Shortly after the birth of my sister Imogene my mother died, leaving my father, George Myers, with seven children, two of them, Geraldine and Vida, from a previous marriage. When I imagine her, I think of an attractive young woman with the same wide smile my sisters had. I wish I could have known her. However, today, when I think of mother, I think of another woman, my father's first wife, Florence Dean.

Florence Dean's mother emigrated from Germany in the late 1800s. A cook by profession, Mary Gearhart settled outside Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in New Franklin, Pennsylvania. There she met and married a Native American by the name of Brown. The couple had one daughter, Florence. Mary Gearhart, a small, pleasant woman, worked at a number of restaurants before finding a job in a German hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

When Florence was old enough to work, she also came to Martinsburg. It was while working at the hotel that she met a young black man, George Myers. The two young people began to see each other socially and were married when Florence was seventeen. From this marriage came two children, Geraldine and Viola. Unfortunately, the marriage ended in divorce, and Florence returned to Pennsylvania. The fact that Florence had married a black man did not sit well with her German relatives, and she was made to feel unwelcome. She decided to move to Baltimore, Maryland, where she met Herbert Dean.

Herbert Dean lived in Baltimore with his father, stepmother, two sisters, Nancy and Hazel, and his brother, Leroy. His father, William Dean, was a tall, handsome, and opinionated man who had little use for formal education aside from reading the Bible, and even less use for women.

He ran a small hauling business in Baltimore that consisted of several wagons and teams of horses. He expected his sons to enter the business when they were of age. When trucks began to replace horses and wagons, he scoffed at the idea, labeling the trucks as a mere fad that would never last. Even as his business declined, he stubbornly stuck to his beliefs. By the time he was nine, Herbert Dean was already working, pulling a wagon through the streets of the city, collecting scraps of wood, cutting it for kindling, and selling it door to door to light the fires in the old coal stoves that most people had at the time. Herbert had left school after the third grade, realizing that he was needed to help support the family.

By the time Herbert reached manhood, his father's hauling business was no more than a way of making a few dollars on occasion, and when William Dean still declined to invest in trucks, both of the boys struck out on their own. Leroy decided to remain in the Baltimore area, and Herbert decided to try his luck in New York City . . .

Bad Boy
A Memoir
. Copyright © by Walter Myers. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews