The Stars Beneath Our Feet

I listened to this book and my 13yo daughter read it. Yes, it is more appropriate for the YA age group. However, having worked in inner city schools and with kids exactly like this, it is their reality. The violence, language and life challenges are real. Those kids see this every single day, it doesn't wait for when they are old enough to deal with it. There are reviews about the N word, of course we know this is not to be used, but come on people, the kids use it all the time. The content in this book is real life for so many. Instead of shying away from it, let us get uncomfortable and raise questions with our kids, help them work through these tough issues.This book has a beautiful story of choosing your own path, not just going with the norms. It addresses tough subjects, some of which are not brought up in other books of the same theme. The idea that adults make bad decisions and they can apologize, that kids can find a new way, that friendships can help bridge new hope. This book is wonderful. Beautiful story of friendship and learning to accept the person you can actually be when you go for it! Bravo!

Great book

A beautiful book exploring loss, divorce, diversity and struggles of an inner city youth. This book is age appropriate but does not hold back covering anger, depression, drug use, gay parenting, bullying and more but in a beautiful compassionate style. Highly recommend.

This book deals with a very difficult subject; a 12 year-old boy loses his older brother to gun violence; but it is still a very hopeful book. There are so many things that are wrong in this boy's world, but there are people who are trying to help him navigate his way through the hardship and despair to find a path to a better life than the one that caused his brother's death. I think this book should be required reading for all of our elected officials, who think that people live in poverty because they don't try to better their lives. This book shows that it's easier said than done. To the mom who stopped reading it to her son: keep reading it. It may make your son aware of how "the other half lives", and make him compassionate for the less fortunate.

Excellent book. It might be at a 10 yo reading level but maybe a little older content wise. My 10 yo son and I read this together and it gave us lots of opportunities for conversation. I liked that my suburban-raised white son got to hear about the life and times of a black Harlem preteen. That being said, there was a lot of heavy subjects and things like the main character and his friends smoking cigarettes in the park. There was also a disproportionate number of gay characters. Glad they were represented, but thought it was a little odd that there were so many, plus there was only one character whose sexuality was relevant to the story. There are a lot of positive messages about friendship, acceptance, forgiveness, dreaming big and being your best self, but they are conveyed in a very subtle way that doesn’t beat you over the head with the message. Overall an excellent book, but probably more for the 13 and up crowd and even then still should probably have some parental discussion due to some of the intensity. Well done!

My son really eenjoyed

My 12 year old loves this book.

The book is so good. I totally recommend it. The details that the author puts in was like so good. Like that was how GOOD it was.

Good story, not the standard cast of characters, not the standard ways to deal with gang pressure, peer pressure, and being non-neurotypical, with an ending that's not too pat and not too happy. I enjoyed it.

Bought this for my 11 yr old and he was super appreciative. Said he could really relate, the story was gripping and he couldn’t put the book down. Thank you to the author for creating such a great story!

Excellent

My son really liked this