Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels
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Just the Series: HRW Library   

Series and Publisher: HRW Library   

Annotation: The story of one black teenager's twelve month tour of duty in Vietnam, includes realistic language.
 
Reviews: 4
Catalog Number: #95306
Format: Perma-Bound Edition
Teaching Materials: Search
Copyright Date: 1988
Edition Date: 2008 Release Date: 05/01/08
Pages: 309 pages
ISBN: Publisher: 0-545-05576-8 Perma-Bound: 0-8000-5059-2
ISBN 13: Publisher: 978-0-545-05576-5 Perma-Bound: 978-0-8000-5059-7
Dewey: Fic
LCCN: 87023236
Dimensions: 18 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
Starred Review ALA Booklist

Starred Review "We're all dead over here. . . . We're all dead and just hoping we come back to life." Though the words belong to black, 17-year-old Richie Perry, they merely echo the thoughts of all the characters in this gut-twisting Vietnam War novel that breaks uncharted ground in teenage fiction. With the papers full of peace talks and money scarce at home, Richie, like others he would come to know, enlists re to postpone a dead-end life in Harlem than to defend his country. He does not really understand what awaits him overseas--a war that will rip away his youth and test his sanity, while it forges bonds of friendship and love unlike any he has ever known. Myers does an outstanding job of re-creating the theater of war--from the tedium that breeds violence and vicious words among American comrades (black against white, black against black, white against white, and man against man), to the sudden shock, the pain, the confusion, and the stark terror that brings soliders face-to-face with their ideals, their religious beliefs, and their morality a world where a mother turns her child into a human bomb, an officer sends men into combat only to reap honors for himself. Social and political concerns related to the conflict blend smoothly into the plot: American antiwar sentiment, draft dodgers, drug abuse among servicemen, and the role of the media all concern Perry and his friends. Plot tension expertly reflects the extreme conditions of the battlefield cluding highly charged, touching scenes along with those demonstrating heroism, cowardice, and visceral terror. While descriptions are explicit, action shocking, and language rough, Myers has kept a tight rein on his telling, presenting, in unadorned prose, the way it was. And he unfolds the separate and connected stories of Richie and his squad so deftly that it is hard to believe they are not real.

Word Count: 74,968
Reading Level: 4.2
Interest Level: 7-12
Accelerated Reader: reading level: 4.2 / points: 11.0 / quiz: 11716 / grade: Upper Grades
Reading Counts!: reading level:8.1 / points:12.0 / quiz:Q03774
Lexile: 650L
Guided Reading Level: Z
Fountas & Pinnell: Z

An exciting, eye-catching repackage of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers' bestselling paperbacks, to coincide with the publication of SUNRISE OVER FALLUJA in hardcover.

A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the U.S. is even there at all.


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