Jimi & Me (review)

In this heart-wrenching free-verse poetry novel, thirteen-year-old Keith James is coming to grips with the violent murder of his music-producer father. Keith immerses himself in the music his father loved, especially the music of Jimi Hendrix, whose lyrics are woven throughout Adoff's poetry. Left with few resources, Keith and his mother are forced to move from Brooklyn to an aunt's home in rural Ohio, where a biracial new kid wearing psychedelic sixties clothes and an afro doesn't exactly fit in. His home life and his mother's mental state spiral further downward when troubling secrets and financial discrepancies begin to surface that foreshadow a startling revelation about Keith's father's life. The story is slow paced and contemplative in the beginning, focusing inward on Keith's churning emotions and anguish; upon discovery of the secret (Keith's dad had a son, Jimi, with another woman before Keith was born), Keith's anger becomes directed outward, and he concocts a scheme to meet this other son and get back the money he feels he and his mother deserve. Despite the disappointingly contrived resolution, Adoff's skillful poetry—street-language teen sensibility paired with elegant expression, rhythm, and pacing—stands out, creating a musical effect and crafting a main character whose powerful feeling carries the story. While verse novels dealing with death are many (Woodson's Behind You, BCCB 5/04, and Mack's Birdland, BCCB 11/03, for example), this weighty book offers enough compelling poetry, deep emotions, and musical rhythms to make it worth delving into.