It took me a while to be comfortable with the “street dialect” if that’s the proper way to refer to the speech used by these inner city kids – but – that grew on me – what a great concept – I’d love to add this to a civil war unit – it brings the race issue forward into today’s culture in a story of a diverse bunch of kids who have a very different take on race/war etc. Good story too – driven by smart main characters with real life problems – Good kids, good story, great connection to history.
The underachieving kids, as a last chance to stay in school in Harlem are given the task of stopping the Civil War – during a unit of study during which the kids are divided by North and South.