It would be best to teach this novel by having students actually read it aloud and act it out, so that they have concrete movements to convey what is at times rather abstract prose.

However, they may find the format hard to follow. Students will enjoy the gritty setting, which gets plenty of loving description by Myers. The adult characters get less sympathetic portrayals though they all have their reasons for wanting to keep Damien and Junice apart, their cynicism reveals their powerlessness. She even tells Damien at one point, “I am only what you see, this stick/Of a woman trying to make enough magic/To negotiate the shadows of these streets.My life is not packaged” (109).

Damien is thoughtful and kind, while Junice refuses to let her situation define her. Myers displays his considerable talents through these vignettes as each poetic voice is at once unique and in harmony with the other poems.īoth Damien and Junice are strong characters. Sometimes we get glimpses into Damien’s thoughts, other times Junice’s, the mothers’, and even the social worker assigned to Junice’s case. How the two lovers meet, interact, and ultimately decide their fate unfolds in short poems written from multiple points of view.

Damien’s mother and father are proud of his accomplishments, including acceptance to Brown, but they want no part of Junice or her troubles. Junice’s mother has just been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for possession and distribution of drugs, and she has no one to look after her and her nine-year-old sister, Melissa. Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Bermuda, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Gabon Republic, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Greenland, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Macau, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Suriname, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Virgin Islands (U.S.This slim volume, written in free verse, tells the story of Damien and Junice, two Harlem teenagers who fall in love despite all the forces against them.

Harlem by walter dean myers read aloud