Genre: Screenplay, Crime Fiction
Honors: 1999 National Book Award for Young People's Literature
2000 Michael L. Printz Award
2000 Coretta Scott King Award Honor
Review: Monster is written as a part diary, part screenplay about the trial of young Steve Harmon and his associate James King for the robbery and murder of a drugstore clerk in Harlem, New York. Much of the story takes place in dialogue between Harmon and his defense lawyer, as well as in the courtroom where he is tried for being an accomplice of the murder. Even though one learns about the case through Harmon's perspective, the listener/ reader is kept on edge and never learns about the verdict until the very end. The story emphasizes the extraneous fight that young urban youth face to survive amongst their peers, as well in the justice system where odds are usually stacked against them.
Opinon: The screenplay format of the trial provides a humanistic perspective to those whom society considers "Monsters" for drugs, robbery, and murder. The experience that is conveyed through Harmon is existential where intentions, murder of the clerk, and characters involved are blurred by the process of the justice system. The full-cast dramatization of characters and accusations thrown back and forth from witnesses to lawyers is a stimulating and mind perplexing story that confronts social pressures, identity, and urban crime.
Ideas: Good book for a critical thinking class or sociological debate.
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