Hip-Hop High School

Meet Theresa Anderson, known to her friends as Tee-Ay. Alan Lawrence Sitomer has captured Tee-Ay's struggle to survive high school and make it to college, and at the same time deal with some serious issues -- drive-by shootings, discrimination, and poverty. HIP-HOP HIGH SCHOOL presents big-city teens with big-city problems in a realistic, yet positive and inspiring story. As a sophomore, Tee-Ay is finding it difficult to measure up to her older brother, Andre. (His story is told in Sitomer's The Hoopster). He is attending Stanford, and Tee-Ay thinks it would be great to be accepted at USC someday so she could tease Andre when USC kicks Stanford in football. Attending a top-notch university seems like a pretty lofty goal, but Tee-Ay is willing to fight for it. The story takes Tee-Ay and her fellow classmates through 10th, 11th, and 12th grade to graduation. Along the way she watches one friend, Cee-Saw, become pregnant and drop out, and another almost lose sight of her goals due to family obligations. One positive force in Tee-Ay's life is Devon, who helps her tap into her true potential as they study together for the dreaded SAT -- their ticket to a brighter future. Sitomer uses hip-hop language to create vivid characters that grab the reader and carry them through right to the end. Big-city teens will be able to relate to the situations, and more sheltered teens will be transported to a world beyond their own.(Amazon customer)