Judging a Book By Its Cover
While we're usually taught to not judge books by their covers, sometimes it can be helpful to make predictions on what the text is going to be about! That's exactly what we're going to do in this activity.
First, look closely at these two versions of the front cover:
- Who is on the cover?
- What vibe does the font give you?
- What does masquerade mean?
- What kind of area is the Bronx? How do you think the setting will effect the story?
- What predictions can you make from the words written all over the cover on the right?
Next, we're going to read the book blurb on the back cover. It uses this excerpt from the novel:
Tyrone Bittings
"School ain’t nothin’ but a joke. My
moms don’t want to hear that, but if it weren’t for Wesley and my other homeys,
I wouldn’t even be here, aiight? These white folk talking ‘bout some future,
telling me I need to be planning for some future—like I got one! And Raynard
agreeing, like he’s smart enough to know. From what I hear, that boy can’t
hardly read! Anyway, it’s them white folk that get me with this future mess.
Like Steve, all hopped up about working on Broadway and telling me I should
think about getting with it too. Asked me if I ever thought about writing
plays. “Fool! What kinda question is that?” I said. He threw his hands up and backed
off a few steps. “All I’m saying is, you’re a walking drama, man. You got that
down pat, so maybe you should think about putting it on paper.” When that boy
dyed his hair, I b’lieve some of that bleach must’ve seeped right into his
brain. I grind my teeth and lower my voice. “Boy, get out my face,” I tell him.
He finally gets the message and splits. I’m ticked off that he even got me thinking about such nonsense as
Broadway.
White folk! Who they think they
kidding? They might as well go blow smoke up somebody else’s you-know-what,
‘cause a Black man’s got no chance in this country. I be lucky if I make it to
twenty-one with all these fools running round with AK-47s. Here I am one of the
few kids I know whose daddy didn’t skip out on him, and he didn’t even make it
to thirty. He was doing okay ‘til he got blown away on a Saturday. Blam!
Another statistic in a long line of drive-bys. Life is cold. Future? What I get
is right now, right here, spending time with my homeys. Wish there was some
future to talk about. I could use me some future."
Now using the clues you've gathered from these two covers, use the worksheet below to write down your predictions about the text. We'll revisit these predictions frequently to see how accurate they are and how we can adjust them.
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