The Beast

Publishers Weekly

Myers (Monster) sketches a provocative picture of an intelligent, likable 16-year-old straddling two worlds: his neighborhood on 145th Street in Harlem and the privileged world of Wallingford, the boarding school where he is spending his senior year. Anthony Witherspoon (or Spoon, as his friends call him) comes from a loving home and has an aspiring-poet girlfriend, Gabi-introduced in the opening chapter, as Spoon departs for Wallingford. In the next chapter, Spoon and his fellow students make plans to return home for Christmas break, and it quickly becomes clear that Chanelle, an Upper East Side New Yorker, fancies him. In a first-person account, Spoon describes the myriad ways things have changed in the three months that he's been away. A close friend has dropped out of school, Gabi's younger brother has been "gang banging" (trying to get into a gang) and Spoon finds a hypodermic needle on Gabi's dresser. Readers glimpse Spoon's complex universe as he enters a drug den to retrieve Gabi and gets snubbed by Chanelle's doorman when he arrives at her home for a party. Such scenes are tantalizing, yet the ideas introduced seem only partially developed (the chapter about finding the drug den is titled "the labyrinth," and implies that addiction is "the beast," yet Spoon refers to his purposeless childhood buddies in a similar fashion: "They seem as if they're wandering around in some monster maze"). Readers will recognize that Spoon's surroundings have changed but may be left to wonder how those changes have affected him. Ages 14-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT

Anthony "Spoon" Witherspoon has grown up in Harlem, but now he's spending his senior year of high school at a mostly white prep school in Connecticut. A new world is opening up to him, but he misses his old girlfriend Gabi very much, and when he returns to New York at Christmas time after many months away he goes to see her immediately. He finds her much changed from the bright, eager young poet he left behind. Gabi has lost hope, worn down by caring for a fatally ill mother, an elderly grandfather, and her younger brother, who's hanging out with gangs; in fact, Gabi is now addicted to drugs, and Spoon must help her to get help. In this poignant tale about dreams, about longing and belonging, Spoon is on the cusp of a new life but still feels ties to the old one. He starts to see his Harlem community in a new way as he thinks of going to college; and even more important, he comes to understand the importance of having dreams, and working to fulfill them. The overall mood is sad and haunting, as Spoon struggles to assist Gabi and come to terms with the changes in himself, but as always Myers' writing is direct, affecting and conveys a heartfelt message. KLIATT Codes: JS; Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2003, Scholastic, 176p.,
— Paula Rohrlick

VOYA

Sixteen-year-old Anthony "Spoon" Witherspoon seizes an opportunity to leave Harlem and enroll at Wallingford Academy, an elite suburban prep school. The security of Wallingford allows Anthony to escape the drugs, violence, and despair of the streets, but he also leaves behind Gabi, a girl he loves who is from the Dominican Republic. At the New England school, he discovers that the few African American girls do not want to be "anywhere near another black person," and the competitive atmosphere makes achievement a top priority. Returning home during the Christmas holidays, Spoon sees that the "Beast," the street life, is devouring his friends from the 'hood. Gabi's brother runs with a gang, Spoon's best friend has dropped out of school, and his exposure to the white world of Wallingford now has him out of step with the street's rhythm. Stunned by changes in Gabi, who has lost weight and seems distant, Spoon soon learns that she is using heroin, but in her words, "only skin surfing." Falling into heavier use upon her mother's death, Gabi disappears into a drug house, as Spoon desperately scours the neighborhood, determined to pry her from the Beast's grasp. Avoiding street slang and profanity, Myers deftly contrasts Anthony's Wallingford life and Spoon's return to the hopelessness of Harlem's streets without becoming didactic. The theme of inner-city teens struggling to succeed without abandoning their cultural background is neatly woven throughout the story. The author's name and the intriguing title will attract junior high readers. VOYA Codes: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High,defined as grades 7 to 9). 2003, Scholastic, 170p,
— Rollie Welch

From The Critics

When Anthony "Spoon" Witherspoon comes home to Harlem from Wallingford Academy, he finds himself caught between two very different worlds, and he doesn't really feel like he belongs in either. Things are different for him in Harlem. People seem to have changed, and their reaction to him has changed. His best friend has dropped out of school, and a prim and proper classmate from "the Ave," Clara, is pregnant. His girlfriend, Gabi, is acting strangely. Her mother is sick, and her little brother, Rafe, is running with gang-bangers. Spoon doesn't understand why she is keeping him at a distance until he catches her in a daze with a hypodermic needle at her bedside. On the other side of his dual existence, Spoon's well-to-do friend from Wallingford Academy, Chanelle, makes it known that she wants to be more than just friends. Spoon struggles to find an identity that works in Harlem and at Wallingford. The Beast is an excellent novel about difficult issues, including race, drugs, and the juxtaposition of poverty and affluence; however, Walter Dean Myers resists the temptation to preach or provide simple answers to complicated problems. 2003, Scholastic Press, 170 pp., Ages young adult.
—Ray Castle

Children's Literature

Anthony Whitherspoon, a.k.a. "Spoon," an intelligent seventeen-year-old raised on the streets of Harlem, leaves the streets during his last year of high school to attend Wallingford Academy in Connecticut in an effort to achieve his goal of entering an Ivy League school. Leaving his girlfriend, Gabi, he journeys towards a brighter future. Spoon's story is one of an African-American boy struggling to step outside the norm and better himself. Life at the academy makes him aware of how the Harlem way of life is different. He begins to struggle with the fact that he and Gabi are not as close as they once were as he realizes his new feelings for Chanelle. When Spoon returns home for Christmas, the world he had known is no longer the way he remembered; he no longer feels part of the place he once called home. He feels as though he is a stranger in a new place forgetting the ways of survival on the streets. Gabi, the once-aspiring poet, has fallen under the control of drugs. Spoon must come to grips with the beast of drug abuse, the choice between Chanelle and Gabi, the death of Gabi's mother, and the reality of street life in Harlem. The struggles that Spoon faces throughout the novel correspond to the many issues that other young adults face. 2003, Scholastic Press, Ages 14 up.
—Joseph H. Israel

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Anthony "Spoon" Witherspoon, 17, leaves Harlem, and his girl, Gabi, to spend his senior year at Wallingford Academy in Connecticut, with the hope that he will get into an Ivy League college. While he adjusts to prep-school life and navigates the racial and social divides of the haves and the want-to-haves, Gabi's life comes undone. Her mother is dying, her younger brother may be running with a gang, and her blind grandfather has come to stay. When Spoon comes home for Christmas, Gabi is different. She's thinner, certainly, and so is her spirit. Spoon discovers a needle in her room and "the beast," heroin, is uncovered. Gabi-a clear-eyed, sassy Dominicana who writes poetry and dreams of attending Columbia-explains that she has lost the road that once ran through her life to her future. Most of the first-person narrative takes place during the holiday break in Harlem, and Myers's descriptions of the streets and people-the bright, clean, working-class hope and the slate-gray bankruptcy of drugs and crime-are photographically authentic and dizzyingly musical. Spoon's observations are philosophical and precocious, but the story races along at the pace of his anxieties-about a future, with or without Gabi, and about his place in Harlem and in the world. The language is simple and clean; the plot unfolds seamlessly; and the characters emerge shaky, worldly wise, and cautiously optimistic.-Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Journeys are hard, and often there are beasts to face along the way. It's a theme repeated many times in Myers's story of Anthony Witherspoon, 17, home in Harlem after his first term at an exclusive New England boarding school. Ambivalent about leaving in the first place, now he feels as if his old neighborhood has already changed, or he has changed, or maybe he is already seeing things as an outsider. His girlfriend Gabi has become a drug addict and other friends seem lost or trapped. Harlem street life seems like a labyrinth, a monster maze, with beasts ready to snatch you up for making a wrong turn. Allusions to demons, Herod killing babies, the Black Plague, saints who sometimes fail you, and beasts who sometimes comfort lend a mythic air to a realistic story that offers no easy answers. If there are no magicians waving helpful wands, at least there's the possibility of hope, promise, and belief "in a heart that sees beauty and a soul that prays for love." (Fiction. YA)