Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Street Lit



Buckhanon, K. Upstate.NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0312332693; Paperback; 256 pages; $11.12 USD 

Awards

  • 2006 American Library Association ALEX Award

  • 2006 Audio Publishers Association Award in Literary Fiction (Audiobook)

  • 2006 nominee for the Hurston/Wright Foundation's Debut Fiction Award

  • 2006 Buckhanon received the inaugural Terry McMillan Young Author Award

  • 2005 Essence Magazine named Buckhanon one of America's "Three Writers To Watch." 

Annotation

Natasha and Antonio fight to save their relationship when Antonio is sent to jail; their fight lasts for a period of ten years. Readers will be fighting for their relationship and to find out if it will truly last.

Book Talk

Antonio is seventeen year old teenager living in New York City and Natasha is his sixteen year old girlfriend.  Antonio, to his shock, finds himself in jail accused of killing his father. Natasha and Antonio want nothing but to be together, and both make a commitment to stay together even though Antonio is locked up. Antonio fights every day just to make it while Natasha is faced with life decisions of her own. The two write letters back and forth to one another over the course of a decade [ open the book to any page].  Their paths seem to go into two separate directions but their love and trust in one another seems to be the only constant in each other’s lives. Antonio and Natasha sacrifice so much to be together, but they keep writing one another. Life and prison throw their lives in different directions with different choices, but they keep writing one another. Natasha and Antonio’s desperate longing for one another is almost unbearable, but they keep writing one another. [Slowly keep turning pages to show the format as you pan it around the room emphasizing the years that go by]  Why? They can’t seem to let go of the love that started when they were sixteen and seventeen. Because first loves are hard to let go and even at every obstacle life and prison throw at them they are there for each other even if it is just through letters. After ten years, they still correspond with one another…… are they able to stay together? Is their love that strong?   

Listen to an audio excerpt from the book.....


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