Rikers High : )

I fell in love with this book on the first page.  Paul Volponi weaves sentences and creates characters that get you thinking.  Rikers High was so well- written, it had me crying... twice.  The first day I got this book, I had read the first fifty pages, taken a nap, and finished the rest of the book.  Only one other book has made me want to wake up from a nap to finish it.  I really have to hand it to Volponi;  he can really pull you in.

Martin Stokes could hold his own in the tough New York City neighborhood where he grew up, but that's nothing- nothing- compared to Rikers Island.  Martin's been in the Rikers Island jail for five months and counting, locked up for a crime he didn't even mean to commit.

After his court date is delayed yet again, Martin gets caught in a razor fight between two warring inmates.  Now his face will be forever marked with a jailhouse scar.  But one good thing comes from this attack: Martin is transferred to a different part of Rikers, where adolescent inmates a required to go to school.  There he meets a teacher who genuinely wants to help Martin turn his life around.  Will he see the light, or be consumed with getting revenge on his attackers?

And so we go.