Myers, Walter Dean. (1988). Fallen Angels. NY: Scholastic.
ISBN: 978-0590409438
Awards: Coretta Scott King Award (1989)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (1988)
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (1989)
ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (1998)
ALA 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000
Bibliotherapeutic Usefulness: History, Reality of War, Racism, Human Capacity for Love and Evil
Genre: Historical Fiction
Annotation: Richie joins the army with the belief that battle is heroic and that he is going to be a part of a rational effort that depends on skill. What he finds in Vietnam; however, is chaos, violence, fear, and death.
Summary: Richie Perry is a seventeen-year-old black kid from Harlem who travels to Vietnam to fight in the U.S. Army. He joins the army to earn money to provide for his younger brother, Kenny, but also to escape from his hard life in Harlem. All of Richie's beliefs about war are challenged, and then shattered as he makes his way through the chaos, violence, death, and fear that are the realities of war.
Evaluation: While hard to read at times, the self reflection and honest (if not terrible) emotions depict war with a necessarily harsh truthfulness. Richie's struggles to deal with racism and to comprehend the craziness of war will stay with readers for a long time.
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