Monster Walter Dean Myers Essay

The book Monster is a realistic fiction that was written by Walter Dean Myers. This book is set in inner city Harlem where crime is just a part of everyday life. It is nothing unusual to hear of a stickup once a week, and the people of this area casually accept crime as a part of their normal, everyday life. Children also seem to be considered guilty if authorities get the smallest tip that they were involved in a crime. They do not investigate as thorough as they should because most of the time everyone in that area is guilty. Monster is a book written in the form of a film script by its main character, Steve Harmon. Steve is a sixteen-year-old boy that is being tried for participating in a robbery and murder. As the book progresses, the film script is broken up by Steve’s journal entries

He is facing twenty-five years or more in prison, and through his journal entries, he displays his fear of living there his entire young adulthood. Steve is not the only one being tried for this murder. Authorities claim that he was the lookout man, and his friend Bobo Evans is the one that actually committed the murder. He and Bobo are considered monsters by the prosecutor, and she tries her very best to put every possible witness on the stand to testify against them. However, she does not always choose witnesses with the best character or background to reveal the events that happened the day of the crime. When the verdict is read, the screenplay cuts to silence, and the reaction of Steve, his family, and his lawyer is portrayed very clearly. I found this book to be very interesting because even though it was a fictional book, it taught a lesson that all young adults should learn. The book showed being at the wrong place at the wrong time can cause a lot of problems. Even though Steve was not the one that actually killed the Mr. Nesbitt, he was tried for the crime of murder because he was at