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Steve’s neighborhood acquaintance James King is on trial with him but defended by a separate attorney. Steve maintains his innocence but through flashbacks in the screenplay we learn that his innocence may be somewhat ambiguous. The setting is Harlem, present day and told in first person by Steve who copes with the stress of the trial by writing the events of the trial as a screenplay. Sixteen year old Steve Harmon is on trial for a murder committed during a neighborhood store robbery. I wanted this collection to represent a variety of genres and styles and Monster succeeds on these levels beautifully. Monster was selected for this collection because it is one of the most acclaimed YA books of the past 20 years. Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, 2000 (ALA).Best Books for Young Adults, 2000 (ALA).Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature in 2000.
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Next Section Monster Summary Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format GradeSaver "Monster Study Guide". The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. In Monster, I have Steve speak of himself in the first person in his diary, but when he gets to the trial and the crime he distances himself through the use of the screenplay.” In 2018, the novel was adapted into a film by American director Anthony Mandler. In regards to the novel’s unique style, Myers says, “In interviewing inmates, I noticed a tendency for the inmates to attempt to separate their self-portrayals from their crimes. Printz Award and received Honorable Mention for the Coretta Scott King Award. Additionally, the novel won the Michael L.
In 2000, Monster was nominated for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. However, this ambivalence prompts the reader to explore the situational and individual factors that led to the narrator’s arrest.įollowing the novel’s publication in 1999, Monster garnered critical acclaim. There is no definitive answer as to whether or not Steve Harmon was involved in the murder of Alguinaldo Nesbitt. The novel’s ambiguity is demonstrative of the ambiguous nature of crime and sentencing. While meeting with various inmates at prisons around the New York metropolitan area, Myers was compelled to create a “composite character” whose story could draw upon the themes of accountability, innocence, and the effects of racism on a particular urban community. In interviews, Myers has explained the research techniques he used in order to construct the novel. Pairing a distanced, third-person screenplay with an emotional, first-person diary account, Myers encourages the reader to contemplate the significance of perspective in relation to crime. Myers juxtaposes two different narration techniques to weave Steve’s story together. Myers, who spent most of his life in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, drew from his personal and proximal experiences to portray the story of Steve Harmon, an African-American teenager awaiting trial for murder. Monster is a young-adult drama novel written by Walter Dean Myers.