Between the Lines by Nikki Grimes (review)

In this follow up to Bronx Masquerade (BCCB 3/02), Grimes returns with a new group of eight teens in a Bronx school’s poetry club, preparing for a culminating poetry slam. Darrian Lopez, aspiring newsman and reluctant poet, is the connecting thread, summing up his classmates’ experiences and poetry in pithy headlines. However, all of the teens get a chance to tell their story in prose and in poetry as they negotiate tricky home and parental pressures, explore their relationships with their fellow poets, and practice for the competition. The poetry is eloquent and appealing, giving voice to a struggling girl who cares for her alcoholic mother and functionally orphaned niece, a breezy veteran of childhood heart surgery pushing against his overprotective parents, a young woman getting ready to age out of the foster care system, and so on. Unfortunately, the prose sections are less successful: the teens’ experiences are on the dated side (social media is notably absent), and the characters, diverse in race and experience (yet implausibly all heterosexual), are inclined to be programmatically representative. It’s still an accessible and sympathetic look at some common youth challenges, though, and it has potential to inspire youngsters seeking to write their hearts out or take the mic themselves.