The Scorpions are a gun-toting Harlem gang, and Jamal Hicks is going to become tragically involved with them in this authentic tale of the sacrifice of innocence as well as the struggle to stay away from violence.

This Newbery Honor Book will challenge teenagers to consider their own decisions because they come old inside a complex and frequently frustrating society.

Pushed with a bully to combat and nagged by his principal, Jamal is certainly having a hard time residing in classes. His home lifestyle is not much better, with about Scorpions his mother working her fingertips to the bone to attempt to earn the amount of money for an appeal for Jamal’s jailed older brother, Randy.

Jamal wants to do the right thing and help earn the amount of money to free of charge his sibling by working, but he’s scared to not in favor of the Scorpions. Jamal ultimately pulls free from the gang’s poor influence, but only through the narrowest of escapes.

Walter Dean Myers, five-time winner from the Coretta Scott Ruler Award, sensitively explores the devotion and love between friends faced with hard options. Scorpions is certainly 25 years old, but the problems of poverty and violence make it a timeless powerful read-sadly as relevant as ever.