3. After Tupac & D Foster

Woodson, Jaqueline. After Tupac & D Foster. New York: The Penguin Group, 2008.

Annotation:
Three friends form a tight bond through their passion for the rapper Tupac Shakur and his music.

Justification for Nomination:
The love of Tupac Shakur's fans came alive in this novel. It really shows people that Tupac was not a thug and that he had people behind him no matter what the media was saying about him. This Newberry honor novel lured me in through marketing with its cover and title. Tupac was a huge artist and his music is legendary. I thought it was going to be somewhat of an autobiography (talking mostly about Tupac), but it wasn't and I was happy about that because I knew then that it wasn't going to be boring. I enjoyed Woodson's use of first person narration throughout the whole novel. Although you don't get to know the narrator's name, you get a sense of who she is through the character's detailed words of what she thinks of herself and the other characters in the novel. I believe that the sentence structure and vocabulary are very smooth. It is as if an African-American teenager would say the author's words in reality. In my head, I could see the actual conversations that the characters were having and it made the storyline and characters come to life. I thought it was brilliant the way the novel could relate to what many teenagers are going through. I also thought it was cool that I could relate to this novel as well. From the time I was four until I was eighteen, I was in foster homes. Like the character D in the novel, I knew what it was like growing up in foster homes while my friends had the love of one or both of their parents. I cried because of how much of myself I saw in D. I truly felt as if the author could relate to teens going through the same situations as all of her characters in the novel. I also feel like I know that Jaqueline Woodson defiantly deserved the Newberry honor award and for a novel that is so realistic and entertaining, there is no doubt in my mind why I chose her to be up for nomination.
Genre Category: Fiction, Coming of Age, 2009 Newberry Honor