Synopses & Reviews
Gordon, age thirteen, is the leader of the Friends, a gang of young black boys who struggle to hold a few blocks of bleak, ragged turf in Oakland--known to the homeboys as Oaktown--California. When a more powerful sixteen-year-old drug dealer tries to set the Friends against their neighboring rival gang, the Crew, the dealer's unwilling bodyguard emerges as the key player in a drama that illuminates America's urban reality in a totally new way. A shocking portrait of young kids living on the slimmest of edges,
Way Past Cool is also an inspiring, even hopeful testament to the renewing power of love.
About the Author
Jess Mowry was born in 1960 and raised in Oakland. His first book of stories, Rats in the Trees, won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award in 1990. He lives in Oakland.