Amiri and Odette: A Love Story by Walter Dean Myers, Javaka Steptoe (Illustrator)

Publishers Weekly

Myers's (Sunrise over Fallujah) and Steptoe's (In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall) concept, recasting Swan Lake as hip-hop, may sound unlikely, but in their hands it largely succeeds: the ultra-cool, emotionally hot setting gives the story new power. Swan Lake is a housing project, Rothbart represented as Big Red, a drug lord, and Odette an addict; Amiri tries to save her, but fails. Myers's words carry the force of blows; Steptoe's collages teem with bodies colliding and overlapping. The language swings from pop lyric to Shakespearean, sometimes in the same breath: "Amiri, be my man!/ Save me if you can!/ If not, let my last pure breath/ Pledge my love to you in wretched death." Steptoe gets gritty, working directly on slabs of asphalt, a street effect intensified by the graffiti-like use of multicolored and multisize fonts in the text. His figures are shadowed with ghostly blue; they leap, ward off blows, embrace, argue. It's easy to imagine them as dancers. The momentum yields at the end, where, in contrast to the stark immediacy of the rest of the work, abstract language softens the tragic conclusion. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)

VOYA

Amiri is treated like a prince in the Swan Lake Projects. His mother wants him to find a nice girl with whom to settle down, so she throws him a party to meet several eligible ladies. She warns Amiri to choose wisely. He sees Odette one day while playing basketball. She is beautiful but somehow scarred. Odette is not allowed to love freely because of Big Red. She belongs to him—she is trapped. Amiri must find a way to break the spell Big Red has over Odette before it is too late. This interesting re-telling of the Swan Lake story is set against the backdrop of the projects. Myers takes a classical ballet and puts an urban spin on it. His writing flows, like lyrics to a rap song, across the page. The paintings in this poem add to the grittiness and realism of the setting. Steptoe uses acrylic paints on huge slabs of asphalt. He then embellishes the paintings with newspaper, feathers, plastic bags, and other items to give them a threedimensional quality. Both English and drama teachers may wish to use this slim, picture book while introducing material about Swan Lake. Teachers might also be able to use this book in conjunction with other units, for example, Romeo and Juliet, fairy tales, and Greek mythology. Art teachers could to draw inspiration from the book because of Steptoe's innovative style of collage development. It is a definite must-have in any school or public library. Reviewer: Jonatha Basye

Kirkus Reviews

The acclaimed author uproots the 19th-century classical ballet Swan Lake from its enchanted world of mist-filled lakes and palaces and plunks it solidly down into the dark, danger-filled Swan Lake Projects. The courtly Prince Siegfried morphs into the basketball player Amiri, and the beautiful Odette, turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer in the original, is now under the thralldom of Big Red, the local drug dealer. Myers tells the tale in rap-inspired verse, which appears on the page in different sizes and colors placed for their design values and not for ease of reading. The result strains with the necessity of maintaining narrative symmetry; verse that tries to soar in beat with Tchaikovsky's memorable score is reduced to a plethora of overwrought phrases-"O muffle the drum and mute the horn, / From love's demise, despair is born!" Perhaps Myers would have been better served by Romeo and Juliet, frequently rewritten but more manageable and logical. However, Steptoe's collage-on cinder-block paintings are powerful, haunting and worthy of multiple viewings. His Odette is truly luminous. (Picture book/poetry. 12 & up)

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