Book Review: Fallen Angels
*NOTE: This book review was created for a class at TWU.
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Myers, Walter Dean. FALLEN ANGELS. 1988. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.
2. PLOT SUMMARY: Inner-city teen Richie Perry enlists in the Army after high school graduation to help earn money for his mother and little brother, but gets sent into combat in Vietnam where he makes friends for life, witnesses man's inhumanity to man, and searches for the role he will play in his own future.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
Walter Dean Myers, one of America's preeminent African-American authors for young adults, is noted not only for his ability to accurately describe the lives of young urban African-American teens, in novels such as MONSTER and SHOOTER but also for the variety of his work in both genre and content. From the diverse poetry of HERE IN HARLEM to the historical details of Victorian England in AT HER MAJESTY'S REQUEST, Myers takes any topic he chooses and makes it accessible, personal, and deeply reflective.
In FALLEN ANGELS, Myers draws from his own life and experiences to weave a story of growing up, finding friendship, and discovering one's role in the world through the horrific combat of the Vietnam War. He says, "My ideas come largely from my own background. I write a lot about basketball, and I've played basketball for years and years. I was in the army and I wrote FALLEN ANGELS. I lived in Harlem, and I write about Harlem... Ultimately, what I want to do with my writing is to make connections--to touch the lives of my characters and, through them, those of my readers." (www.teenreads.com) Myers' dedication to the novel reveals an even stronger connection to the war, as he honors his brother "whose dream of adding beauty to this world through his humanity and his art," ended when he died in combat in Vietnam.
Like Myers, the novel's main character, Richie Perry, joins the Army right after graduating from high school in Harlem, hoping to send money home to help his mother and younger brother, but also hoping never to see real combat. After a basketball injury, he is supposed to have a medical "profile" preventing combat duty, but as a result of the military's slow and arbitrary system of red tape, Perry finds himself in the "boonies" of Vietnam, witnessing horrors no one should ever face. Between intense scenes of battle, Perry and the friends he makes in his company try to make sense of the meaning of life and their roles in the world.
The beauty of FALLEN ANGELS lies in its complexity and clarity. Surrounding the story of Perry are important questions of race, sexuality, class, power, and ambition. The racial tensions go both ways, from the soldier who wants all the African-Americans to swear allegiance to each other, to the commander who seems to give the worst jobs to them. One soldier is gay, another Jewish, while others are fighting to rise in rank, or to fulfill the dreams of their parents. Yet all these differences melt away when the men fight with and for each other to survive. In the end, that seems to be the message Myers wants us to hear most clearly in FALLEN ANGELS. On the novel's last page, Perry, wounded but returning home, prays for the "fallen angels," the wounded, and those still fighting, "I knew I was mixing my prayers, but it didn't matter. I just wanted God to care for them, to keep them whole."
In 1989, a year after the novel was first published, it received the Coretta Scott King Award, and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Since then, FALLEN ANGELS has been challenged at many high schools and middles schools for its language, graphic violence, and sexual content, but without these elements, the story wouldn't ring true, and to focus on them is to dwell on the details and miss the heart of the novel. I would recommend this novel to many young adults, and to all teachers of US History, especially 11th Grade Social Studies teachers in Texas.
4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S):
Kirkus (pointed review): "War-story fans will find enough action here, though it isn't glorified...thoughtful readers will be haunted by this tribute to a ravaged generation."
Booklist (starred review): "...this gut-twisting Vietnam novel...breaks uncharted ground."
5. CONNECTIONS:
* 11th Grade Social Studies: this novel would be a great class novel to read or literature circle read during units on the Vietnam War. An excellent photoessay lesson plan using the novel can be found at: http://www.galileo.org/schools/strathmore/english/english_33/index.html, along with a Thinkquest multimedia introduction.
*NOTE: This book review was created for a class at TWU.
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Myers, Walter Dean. FALLEN ANGELS. 1988. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.
2. PLOT SUMMARY: Inner-city teen Richie Perry enlists in the Army after high school graduation to help earn money for his mother and little brother, but gets sent into combat in Vietnam where he makes friends for life, witnesses man's inhumanity to man, and searches for the role he will play in his own future.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
Walter Dean Myers, one of America's preeminent African-American authors for young adults, is noted not only for his ability to accurately describe the lives of young urban African-American teens, in novels such as MONSTER and SHOOTER but also for the variety of his work in both genre and content. From the diverse poetry of HERE IN HARLEM to the historical details of Victorian England in AT HER MAJESTY'S REQUEST, Myers takes any topic he chooses and makes it accessible, personal, and deeply reflective.
In FALLEN ANGELS, Myers draws from his own life and experiences to weave a story of growing up, finding friendship, and discovering one's role in the world through the horrific combat of the Vietnam War. He says, "My ideas come largely from my own background. I write a lot about basketball, and I've played basketball for years and years. I was in the army and I wrote FALLEN ANGELS. I lived in Harlem, and I write about Harlem... Ultimately, what I want to do with my writing is to make connections--to touch the lives of my characters and, through them, those of my readers." (www.teenreads.com) Myers' dedication to the novel reveals an even stronger connection to the war, as he honors his brother "whose dream of adding beauty to this world through his humanity and his art," ended when he died in combat in Vietnam.
Like Myers, the novel's main character, Richie Perry, joins the Army right after graduating from high school in Harlem, hoping to send money home to help his mother and younger brother, but also hoping never to see real combat. After a basketball injury, he is supposed to have a medical "profile" preventing combat duty, but as a result of the military's slow and arbitrary system of red tape, Perry finds himself in the "boonies" of Vietnam, witnessing horrors no one should ever face. Between intense scenes of battle, Perry and the friends he makes in his company try to make sense of the meaning of life and their roles in the world.
The beauty of FALLEN ANGELS lies in its complexity and clarity. Surrounding the story of Perry are important questions of race, sexuality, class, power, and ambition. The racial tensions go both ways, from the soldier who wants all the African-Americans to swear allegiance to each other, to the commander who seems to give the worst jobs to them. One soldier is gay, another Jewish, while others are fighting to rise in rank, or to fulfill the dreams of their parents. Yet all these differences melt away when the men fight with and for each other to survive. In the end, that seems to be the message Myers wants us to hear most clearly in FALLEN ANGELS. On the novel's last page, Perry, wounded but returning home, prays for the "fallen angels," the wounded, and those still fighting, "I knew I was mixing my prayers, but it didn't matter. I just wanted God to care for them, to keep them whole."
In 1989, a year after the novel was first published, it received the Coretta Scott King Award, and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Since then, FALLEN ANGELS has been challenged at many high schools and middles schools for its language, graphic violence, and sexual content, but without these elements, the story wouldn't ring true, and to focus on them is to dwell on the details and miss the heart of the novel. I would recommend this novel to many young adults, and to all teachers of US History, especially 11th Grade Social Studies teachers in Texas.
4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S):
Kirkus (pointed review): "War-story fans will find enough action here, though it isn't glorified...thoughtful readers will be haunted by this tribute to a ravaged generation."
Booklist (starred review): "...this gut-twisting Vietnam novel...breaks uncharted ground."
5. CONNECTIONS:
* 11th Grade Social Studies: this novel would be a great class novel to read or literature circle read during units on the Vietnam War. An excellent photoessay lesson plan using the novel can be found at: http://www.galileo.org/schools/strathmore/english/english_33/index.html, along with a Thinkquest multimedia introduction.
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