Some people in high school are pretending to be at a big masquerade party. They wear masks pretending to be someone different from who they really are, and convince the people around them to see there mask as their true self. Many of the teenagers in the book Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes wore masks to hide who they really were. The students revealed their true identities and how they felt by writing and performing poetry on Open Mike Fridays in their English class. The main character, Tyrone Bittings, is a judgmental, confident, observant teen that reveals who he truly is through learning and listening to poetry. To begin, Tyrone is judgmental; as a result, he comes off as a really tough guy. He feels that to show people that he is not weak he has to be and act better than everyone else. For example, he wants to be a rapper when he gets older. When Tyrone, Wesley, and Sterling go up to do a freestyle rap for Open Mike Fridays, Steve, a white student, goes up to join them. Tyrone believes that Steve could not flow with them; surprisingly, Steve flows pretty well and does really good in front of the class. Tyrone learns that he may act tough, so people judge him as a strong guy, but he should not be judging other people without knowing their capabilities.
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He judges people without getting to know them, and ends up being surprised by who they really are. He is also confident, because he believes in himself. Tyrone wants to be a rapper, and knows that he can one day. Finally, he is observant. Usually people who are quiet and an introvert are observant, but Tyrone is able to learn new things about his classmates through observing them through their poetry. Tyrone and his classmates started to remove their masks through the art of poetry. As a result, the class starts to relate to each other, and the teens begin to realize that they are not as different from each other as they