Walter Dean Myers 145th Street Short Stories

Walter Dean Myers, 145^th Street Short Stories, 2000

Walter Dean Myers’ 145^th Street Short Stories is a collection of short stories dealing with the lives of the characters that inhabit a block in a poor but determined neighborhood.  The stories in this book are an engaging mix that range from eclectic, including the tale of the man who arranged and experienced his funeral while still alive and the girl who dreamed of those who were about to die, to heartwarming and uplifting tales of a police officer’s family spending Christmas Day with an old, lonely woman and a young girl who refuses to abandon her boyfriend after his horrible accident. 

The short stories in this collection deal with the themes of friendship, loyalty, and love, in a romantic, familial, and neighborly sense.  145^th street is a place that is no stranger to violence and death, but in the lives of many of the characters, hope and kindness towards one another prevail in the end.  The fear of gangs is ever present for the characters, especially the school-age ones, but they never give up on trying to live well in a tough neighborhood.  The novel was a fairly easy read that most middle school age students could manage, but there is one scene involving drug use that might be a bit mature for middle school students.  This book would work either as a book students read on their own or as a book for the whole class.  This book would work well if a teacher wanted to read aloud a bit to students every day.  It is organized into short stories, so it would make sense to introduce a new one each day, yet many of the characters appear in more than one story, giving the book as a whole a more unified feel.  This approach allows for readers to encounter a multitude of different points of view on the same place and characters.  Each story allows readers to see 145^th street in a different, deeper light, giving readers a more well-rounded picture of the neighborhood and its inhabitants.