If I Grow Up

By Todd Strasser

In the Frederick Douglass Project where DeShawn lives, daily life is ruled by drugs and gang violence. Dropping out of school and joining a gang is the norm and every kid knows someone who's died. Gunshots ring out on a regular basis.

DeShawn is smart enough to know he should stay in school and keep away from the gangs. But while his friends have drug money to buy anything they want, DeShawn's family can barely afford food for the month. How can he stick to his principles when his family is hungry?

In this gritty novel about growing up in the inner-city projects, award-winning author Todd Strasser opens a window into the life of a teenager struggling with right and wrong under the ever-present shadow of gangs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Mar 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9780857070166

Todd Strasser

Todd Strasser has written many critically acclaimed novels for adults, teenagers, and children, including the award-winning Can’t Get There from Here, Give a Boy a Gun, Boot Camp, If I Grow Up, Famous, and How I Created My Perfect Prom Date, which became the Fox feature film Drive Me Crazy. Todd lives in a suburb of New York and speaks frequently at schools. Visit him at ToddStrasser.com.

Reviews for If I Grow Up

[sparkleponies · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If I Grow Up is a realistic, cautionary book about what happens or can happen to far too many children, especially African American boys in this country without positive adult interactions and guidance (his grandmother was maybe 40 :/ ) The book made me think of the question, not if I grow up but why so many children have to grow up so fast. I know that it is a very real possibility for boys like the protagonist, Deshawn, to wind up in the penal system, but I was hoping that the book would have had a different outcome. I think that this is a book that would lend itself well to a teen book discussion in schools or library.

[tigerlms · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

DeShawn begins the book as a pre-teen living with his 40-something year old grandmother in the projects. We see DeShawn grow and continue to be seduced by the local gang as his dislike grows for the rival gang in the projects. While early on DeShawn sees the terrible things drug use and gang activity does to his community, his lack of opportunities for education and making money ultimately drive him where nearly all others in similar circumstances go. Marcus is the local provider: he's the leader of the gang, and DeShawn's only true male role model. Strasser's narrative can be a bit heavy-handed, and it's clear from the start that he's writing a book to highlight the vast divide between the opportunities available to suburban high school-aged students and those in the ghettos and urban projects of America. Each chapter starts with quotes (primarily from rap songs) and a related fact about the difference of opportunities between rich and poor, white and black. The story is engaging and well-told, and it's so short that an avid reader can get through the novel within a couple hours. The book is a 2011/2012 Missouri Gateway Reader's Award nominee, and I can most especially see reluctant readers embrace this novel. There is violence-- several characters are ruthlessly executed on-page, but it's not offensively graphic and the language isn't vulgar. In one instance Strasser edits a rap lyric from "sh**' to make it read "stuff." Recommended for grades 7-10.

[lnommay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Booklist (January 1, 2009 (Vol. 105, No. 9))Grades 7-10. He treated you like a gangbanger. I thought that’s what you wanted, says DeShawn early on in the book. This conflation of fear and respect is central to DeShawn’s life in a housing project ruled by the Douglass Disciples, a gang in constant battle with the nearby Gentry Gangstas. DeShawn is 12 when the book begins; he is 28 when it ends, and the time shift between each section dramatically illustrates how quickly things can go wrong—a caring mother becomes a prostitute, a promising student becomes a drug pusher, and so on. Despite the lure of money and power, the sensitive DeShawn has no intention of joining the Disciples, instead focusing on his schoolwork while watching his best friend, Terrell, work his way up the hierarchy. But in Strasser’s tough, authentic, and only occasionally preachy work, tragedy is always just a gunshot away, and temptation all too often upsets the best-laid plans. Strasser loads the book with startling true statistics, and the final pages are both hopeful and heartbreaking.

[escondidolibrary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

DeShawn is twelve when the book begins, living in the projects, living in the crossfire of rival gangs. His mom was killed by a stray bullet and bullet holes cover his apartment which he shares with his grandmother and sister. He's good at school and his teacher encourages him to attend a better school so he can get a good education and escape his neighborhood. As he grows older though, the money that the gang members make becomes more and more attractive, even though joining means he may end up in prison, or even worse, dead. Will DeShawn be able to resist temptation?

[meggyweg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved almost all of this book. Strasser paints a very realistic picture of a good boy, a smart kid with potential, sliding down into perdition largely because of forces beyond his control. DeShawn tries different ways to get out of what seems like destiny for every black man in the projects, but his route is always blocked. A teacher advises him to apply to go to a magnet high school, but because of the bad education he got earlier, DeShawn's aptitude test scores aren't high enough. He tries to stay away from the local gangs as much as possible, but living among them, he can't help but get caught in their mess. His father is never mentioned, his mother is dead, his grandmother is on welfare and his sister has two kids by the time she's sixteen. The family doesn't even have enough to eat, never mind move somewhere else. And so, bit by bit, DeShawn disappears into the shadow of gangs and drugs and violence.I was impressed that Strasser was able to keep profanity and graphic violence out of the story, given its setting. This book would be suitable for 12- to 13-year-olds and up.I would have given it four stars, maybe five, but I hated the ending of the story. Not the fact that DeShawn ended up in prison -- that was quite a realistic outcome -- but the utter preachiness of the last chapter, where DeShawn quotes statistics and speculates about the future of the ghetto youth. This is Todd Strasser speaking, not DeShawn, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. It's a pity, because the rest of the book was so good.