ALA Booklist

Recasting his specialty-press debut novel, Rikers (2002), for a younger audience, Volponi tracks a juvenile offender's final 17 days in the New York correctional facility. Though arrested just for telling an undercover cop where to buy weed, Martin has spent five months at Rikers waiting for his case to come up. The experience has made him a canny observer of the prison ecosystem, good at keeping his head down and steering clear of gangs, extortion schemes, brutal correction officers, and other hazards . . . mostly. The author draws authentic situations and characters from his six years of teaching at Rikers, and though his scary cautionary tale is less harrowing than Adam Rapp's Buffalo Tree (1997) or Walter Dean Myers' Monster (1999), it is nevertheless an absorbing portrait of life in stir. In the end, Martin walks out on plea-bargained probation, bearing both inner and outer scars. Rare is the reader who won't find his narrative sobering.

Kirkus Reviews

Five months after his arrest, 17-year-old Martin Stokes is still waiting on Riker's Island for his sentencing. He's picked up a few things during that time, including some GED coursework, many observations about the inequality of the justice system and a scar on his cheek from a slashing razor blade. Volponi's punchy, journalistic prose runs the gamut of emotions, propelling readers through relief and triumph before plunging them back into anger and frustration. Martin's inner workings are left largely unexplored, but his internal dialogue enables adequate character development. Using an amalgamation of real-life people and experiences as his basis to create a rich balance of despair and promise, the author provides a satisfying experience for all readers. These pooled personalities also give substance to secondary characters that might otherwise languish in the shadows. This tale of education and life on the Island will keep readers locked to the page. (Fiction. YA)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Volponi (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Homestretch) recasts his adult novel, <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Rikers (Black Heron, 2002), for a teen audience that will likely be riveted. Seventeen-year-old Martin Stokes has been imprisoned for five months, awaiting trial for a petty crime. Returning from court, he cannot get out of the way when another inmate attacks the boy to whom he is shackled. Martin's face is slashed with a razor; the ensuing scar is a metaphor for the mark prison will leave on the boy, who is no angel (he tells his harried legal aid lawyer she is a “miserable shit”), but whose punishment bears absolutely no relationship to his crime. His break comes when a jailhouse teacher helps him see the importance of finishing school, setting Martin on a path to make the right choice when he's yet again thrust into a violent altercation not of his own making. Volponi, who taught on Rikers Island for six years, writes with an authenticity that will make readers feel Martin's fear. Ages 12–up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Feb.)

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Martin Stokes is awaiting trial at Rikers Island, a New York City correctional facility. His alleged crime is steering: telling an undercover police officer where to buy marijuana in his neighborhood. Riding back to Rikers on a bus after his court date is rescheduled, Martin gets caught between two boys fighting and is cut in the face with a blade. He is assigned to a new unit, and the cut is both the first thing the boys in Sprung notice about him and a metaphor for the indelible mark that prison will leave. In the new unit, Martin attends school for the first time on the Island. The plot is episodic, reflecting both the repetitiveness of daily existence in jail and its instability: one day the house is enjoying the fruits of its commissary visit; the next, the boys are being strip-searched after an apathetic teacher loses his metal chalk holder. Volponi, himself a teacher on Rikers Island for six years, brings to life a believable range of teachers, COs, and inmates and portrays power, hierarchies, and race relations both outside and inside the jail walls with unflinching realism. Martin's narrative voice is frank, conversational, and sometimes angry, and his language, including cursing, is perfectly suited to his character. Physical violence, masturbation, and suicide are all addressed honestly, and teen boys will relate. Megan Honig, New York Public Library

Voice of Youth Advocates

Afterward it seemed like a set up. A boy was sitting on his stoop when an undercover cop posing as a thug stepped up to him and demanded to know where to get some weed. The boy, Martin, tried to be tough, too, and told him about the neighborhood spot. Shortly thereafter, a police cruiser rolled up, and the officers arrested Martin, charging him with steering. Now on Rikers Island, he is simply ôForty,ö his bed number, as he waits through months of delay to get his case heard and enduring pressures that could cause an adult to crack. Caught in the middle of a scuffle, his face is slashed with a razor, and he is subsequently sent to the section where inmates take GED classes. Among the teachers, there is at least one compassionate grownup. Drawing upon his teaching experience in this same detention center, the author conveys the gritty life in juvenile jail. Martin and his cellmates deal with teen gangs and bullying adults in replays of characters and events that Volponi knew firsthand. Young readers will identify with Martin and the other boys, who are just adolescents, after all. A compelling story of living in a system where justice does not necessarily prevail just because someone is young, this novel is a strong choice for middle and high school libraries.ùMarla K. Unruh.