3. The Air Down Here:

True Tales from a South Bronx Boyhood
Gil C. Alicea,With Carmine Desena / Hardcover / Chronicle Books / August 1995

ABOUT THE BOOK

Synopsis
"Gil Alicea was 16 years old when he wrote these 115 short autobiographical essays. . . . Gil lives with his father in a South Bronx neighborhood. He shares his views of his neighbors' problems . . . {and reflects} on his experiences with his family, at school, and among his friends." (Booklist) "Grades five to ten." (Bull Cent Child Books)

Annotation
Good news from the inner city is rare, but Gil's upbeat message and accessible, hip-hop style will give concerned readers--including educators, young people, and parents--a fresh outlook on the future of urban America. The 115 short pieces talk about life, the dangers of drugs, violence and gangs, deaths of family members, and the universal teenage dilemmas: dating, music, clothes, and school.

7. Bada Bing Bada Buddha:

Deep Thoughts from the Bronx
Mike DeStefano,River Huston (Editor),Elena Decker (Photographer) / Paperback / A River Runs Through It Press / May 1999

ABOUT THE BOOK

CUSTOMER REVIEWS - An Open Forum

11. The Boy without a Flag:

Tales of the South Bronx
Abraham Rodriguez,R. W. Scholes (Illustrator) / Paperback / Milkweed Editions / January 1999

ABOUT THE BOOK

Synopsis
This is a collection of short stories about the lives of Puerto Rican teenagers in the South Bronx.

Reviews
From Donna Rifkind - The New York Times Book Review
A first book of fiction by a young Puerto Rican American, {this volume} has only seven stories and totals scarcely more than 100 pages. It's a debut made even more modest by prose that is often as awkward as the book's adolescent characters. Yet in three of the stories, Mr. Rodriguez's descriptions of the bleak lives of his South Bronx teen-agers have a knifelike precision. . . . Brutal though these tales are, they are pretty much what any regular reader ofthe newspapers would expect. . . . When Mr. Rodriguez surprises, however, is in the quiet sophistication of his title story. . . . This poignant story derives its power from a rare emotional depth. Where Mr. Rodriguez's other stories are boldly true to life, they are really only sketches. . . . {His} challenge now is to reach deeper, below the titillation of his worst-case urban scenarios, to the kind of psychological complexity he has struck in his title story.