Positive Value Meal

Encyclopedia Brown and Fletcher Moon, meet Matt Stevens, your average tween detective. His middle school runs smooth as a well-blended vanilla milkshake and he uses more similes than a fifth grade poetry unit. The Big Splash reads like realistic fiction, but disbelief must be suspended. In this pulpy world organized crime boss, Vinny Biggs, runs a tight operation of black market candy and hall passes. He keeps bullies off the playground with his team of pants-wetting assassins. Once your crotch has been targeted you are officially in The Outs, the most undesirable social caste.

Author Jack D. Ferraiolo has paid the attention to detail on this world usually reserved for the creation of alternate dimensions or magical realms. Instead here you can stop by Sal's backyard speak easy or drop by the hard nosed reporter's office in the old gym storage room. Every character has a stereotypical role to fill. The gangster, the reporter, the damsel in distress. The cop, the detective, the bodyguard, the hitman. Because this is a world of organized crime it isn't so clear who is good and who is bad.

The subplot hidden behind all the intrigue is whether Matt can stick to his morals while being employed by the less than trustworthy criminal mastermind. Maybe it's because his Mom is such a hard worker. Maybe it's because the disappearance of his father has left him with an Agent Mulder-like obsession with the truth. Maybe it's because he's seen what happens to kids (like his ex-best friend Kevin) who trade in their freewill for a little clout and authority. Probably for all these reasons Matt stays true to himself and sees the case through. This little lesson is most driven home when Kevin sees the error of his ways and leaves the organization in favor of true friends. The morals in The Big Splash can be harder to find than incriminating evidence in Vinny Biggs's locker though, so mired is the story in its own campiness.

Jacqueline Woodson's After Tupac and D Foster also tells the story of a young girl trying to reconcile her two halves into one whole self. Her world is a realistic portrayal of Queens. Though things seem to be falling apart around her- a family friend incarcerated, her favorite rapper shot and on trial, a friend in foster care- she doesn't face the same blatant moral dilemmas that Matt does. Rather her emotional journey is understanding herself, how she relates to those around her and to the world at large.

It's not that she doesn't have to make choices. But those choices are all down the road. The development here is internal- recognizing the sting of homophobic rap lyrics shows her that she accepts her Neeka's brother Tash for who he is regardless of how the neighborhood judges him. Jealousy creeping up and subsiding allows her to share Johnjay's attention with D. Racism playing out in the park down the street reminds her that life as young black person is obstacle ridden, often unjustly. Sometimes the hardest thing is just accepting that people grow up or move away and remembering that they still love you.

The girls' bond is strong. The reader is left knowing that, when the time comes to choose, this young woman and her friends will stay true to themselves and each other.