28 February 2009 DOPE SICK by Walter Dean Myers, Harper Teen, February 2009, 186p., ISBN: 978-0-06-151477-6; Libr. ISBN: 978-0-06-121478-3

"'But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?'

"'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!'

"Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

"'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?'

"'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'" -- A CHRISTMAS CAROL

A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN PROSE, BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS is a tale of social injustice and poverty, written by Charles Dickens who was forced to go to work at the age of twelve when his father was sent to debtors' prison. In A CHRISTMAS CAROL, set on Christmas Eve in Scrooge's joyless house, Marley's Ghost holds a metaphorical mirror up to Scrooge, a man who has come to care for nothing but accumulating money. Gaining self-knowledge from the experience and perceiving what is to become his own wretched fate, Scrooge comes to understand that he has the power to change himself and alter that fate. Thanks to epiphany, change, and redemption, Scrooge's own future is brighter and -- like ripples moving outward in ever-widening circles -- things will be better for everyone around him.

"Kelly talked street, but I wasn't sure. Something about him wasn't from the 'hood. I wanted to go over to him and put the Nine against his neck, but for some reason I didn't think it was going to bother him. The sucker might have been crazy.

"'You know a way out?' I asked.

"'Why don't you cop a squat and check yourself out on the tube,' Kelly said. He was looking at the television.

"I looked at the television and saw the street below. It looked empty.

"'You got the television hooked up to security cameras?' I asked. "'No.' "'Then how come...?' On the television there was a figure moving across the street wearing a dark jacket. He had one hand up by his side and the other in his jacket pocket. It was me.

"'What is this, a movie or something?'

"'Yeah. I guess it's a movie. What part you want to see next?'"

DOPE SICK is also a story of social injustice and poverty, written by Walter Dean Myers who has again broken new ground in his celebrated, decades-long writing career. Myers' writings for teens have frequently focused on the poorest people and neighborhoods of the world's richest city, and DOPE SICK takes place in the bleakest of Harlem settings -- a reeking, abandoned building that has apparently been utilized as a place for drug addicts to temporarily duck into.

Lil J and his buddy Rico had been in the process of earning some quick money from a local dealer by conveying heroin to a white guy in the park. The buyer turns out to be an undercover cop and, in the ensuing chaos, the cop is shot and Rico is busted. Lil J, having been badly shot in the arm, narrowly escapes into the darkened building. He busts into the room where, inexplicably, a young guy named Kelly is set up with a comfortable chair and the television which is going to provide Lil J a long look at his past, his present, and his future.

Lil J is not especially forthcoming as to what is really going on in his life, and so we are repeatedly startled by what Kelly and his television help reveal:

"'I think I'm pregnant,' she said. "'What?' "'That wasn't the right answer,' she said."

"We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children. We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it." -- Barack Obama, Father's Day sermon, 6/15/08.

Consistent with what President-Elect Obama was preaching about, one facet of Lil J that is revealed is that this seventeen year-old son of an absent father has, himself, become a father. Another is that he is a high school dropout. As he tells Kelly, "All you got to do is walk around and see what everybody who looks like you and living around where you living is doing and seeing they just like you and they ain't going nowhere."

The tension in Kelly's room builds as the hours tick away with the wounded, gun-wielding Lil J coming face to face with his own horrifying fate while the police remain just steps from the building, scouring the neighborhood in search of him.

Just as A CHRISTMAS CAROL was Dickens' visceral reaction to his own experiences and to what he saw happening around him, Walter Dean Myers has written an intense, brilliant, and timely piece of Twenty-first century social commentary that graphically illuminates a cycle of poverty and addiction and fatherlessness that must be addressed by the incoming administration and -- as President Elect Obama has said -- by Americans taking responsibility for their own behavior. (And by reading to their children).

On top of all that, DOPE SICK is one heck of a guy read. Hopefully there will be inspired teachers who have the guts to use this powerful piece of YA literature in the classroom. It would be really wonderful to track down some males in the community to come in and model guy reading behavior by reading this aloud to students. Hopefully, as with A CHRISTMAS CAROL, DOPE SICK will serve to enlighten those who are ignorant of what is going on in far too many of our communities.

"'This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'"

Richie Partington, MLIS

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