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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Neri,
Greg.
GHETTO COWBOY Somerville, MA : Candlewick, 2011 IL 5-8, RL 4.8 ISBN 0763649228 |
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“Suddenly,
something big and white bumps up against the car and I jump. I think I
must be dreamin’ ’cause I just saw a horse run by.”
Cole is shocked (to say the least) when he shows up on his estranged father’s doorstep – a man he has never met – and finds a horse in the living room. Although Cole has moved from one poor, depressed neighborhood in Detroit to another poor, depressed neighborhood in Philadelphia, things are not the same. Yes, the streets are mean and littered with thugs and gang members, and hope for a better life and future is hard to come by. But the surprise of his father’s “cowboy culture” is enough to get Cole to sit up and take notice. Instead of ditching school and hanging with the wrong crowd, like he did in Detroit, he finds himself cleaning horse stalls and hanging with a group of men and boys who have found a glimmer of something special in a place where it seems impossible. When the city threatens to destroy these men's way of life, Cole is faced with the challenge of standing up for what he believes in and being a true “ghetto cowboy”. This story about an unexpected life style for urban youth was inspired by the real-life inner-city horsemen of Philadelphia and Brooklyn, New York. Ghetto Cowboy is a story that will come as both a surprise and an inspiration to those who read it. (Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards Program Booktalks 2012-2013) |
| SUBJECTS:
Fathers and sons -- Fiction.
Horses -- Fiction. City and town life -- Fiction. Conduct of life -- Fiction. Moving, Household -- Fiction. African Americans -- Fiction. Philadelphia (Pa.) -- Fiction. |
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