Bad Boy: A Memoir

Bad Boy is a memoir about Walter Dean Myers that showed some very interesting ways of life for the times. A theme in this book is how the world was changing. He talked about how African Americans were starting to get more jobs and were progressing into sports. He talks of Jackie Robinson, who was the first African American to play in the major leagues. Times have changed so much since then. Another common thing to do back then according to Walter, was to receive beatings from parents. This really disturbed me when I read it because that must have had such an impact on the kids. Thank goodness things have changed regarding that. It was also disturbing to hear that if a child was bad in class, they would make them go sit in the closet. It was interesting to see through this memoir how so much has changed in daily life over just one person’s lifetime. Another theme in this book is gender roles. Walter talks about how he enjoys writing poem, reading books from the library, and he even found out that he likes to dance. He felt that he had to keep all of these things a secret or act like he did not enjoy them because they were not boy activities. This issue of gender roles still exists today in society and many boys and girls feel pressured to like certain things and act a particular way because of these gender roles. Other themes of this book include loss, race, bullying, escapes and financial struggles.

Bad Boy positions adolescents as having a hard time dealing with life. It positions them having dreams and realizing that they are not possible. I believe that a lot of adolescents have a very hard time dealing with difficult situations and begin to get depressed. Walter begins to feel very alone and most adolescents feel that way at some point or another. It also positions them beginning to understand how the world works. From personal experience, I know when I was an adolescents I began to learn that the world is not always fair and it is not always right. Walter learns about the struggles and horrific things African Americans had to go through and this weighs very heavily on him.

I would give this book a C because it was very interesting to see how different things were when Walter Dean Myers was growing up to how it is now. However, nothing really hooked me into reading this and it did not keep me interested. I found myself constantly checking my phone while reading it and I do not like feeling the need to distract myself while reading.