{"product_id":"tight-isbn-9781524740573","title":"Tight","description":"\u003cb\u003e* \"Maldonado \u003cb\u003eexcels at depicting realistic and authentic interactions between middle school boys\u003c\/b\u003e.\"--\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Washington Post Best Children's Book of 2018!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTight: Lately Bryan's been feeling it in all kinds of ways. He knows what's tight for him in a good way--reading comics, drawing superheroes, and hanging out with no drama. But drama's hard to escape where he's from, and that gets him wound up tight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd now Bryan's new friend Mike is challenging him to have fun in ways that are crazy risky. At first, it's a rush following Mike, hopping turnstiles, subway surfing, and getting into all kinds of trouble. But Bryan never feels right acting wrong. So which way will he go when he understands that drama is so not his style? Fortunately his favorite comic heroes shed light on his dilemma, reminding him that he has power--the power to choose his friends and to stand up for what he believes is right . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTorrey Maldonado delivers a fast-paced, insightful, dynamic story. Readers will connect with Bryan's journey as he navigates a tough world with a heartfelt desire for a different life.“I was riveted by Bryan’s journey, breaking down stereotypes and becoming his own kind of superhero. This, in and of itself, is not only Bryan’s superpower but Maldonado’s as well. Loved this book!”—\u003cb\u003eJacqueline Woodson, National Book Award–winning author of \u003ci\u003eBrown Girl Dreaming\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eTight\u003c\/i\u003e hits all the right notes in delivering a suspenseful tale of what it means to become a man in a world split by superhero devotion and macho swagger. A thoughtful look into the pitfalls of male friendship and a riveting addition to tween lit.”—\u003cb\u003eG. Neri, Coretta Scott King Honor–winning author of \u003ci\u003eYummy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e*\u003c\/b\u003e “The complex emotional lives of young boys of color are portrayed through a nascent friendship. . . . Pushing of boundaries as an emotional response to trauma, vulnerability, and societal pressures is an overarching theme of the novel, pressing readers to consider the impetus of what is deemed ‘bad behavior.’ . . . [Maldonado] excels at depicting realistic and authentic interactions between middle school boys. An excellent addition to libraries with fans of David Barclay Moore’s \u003ci\u003eThe Stars Beneath Our Feet\u003c\/i\u003e, Jason Reynolds’s \u003ci\u003eGhost\u003c\/i\u003e, and character-driven realistic fiction.”—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Through Bryan’s believable, emotionally honest first-person narration, Maldonado skillfully shows a boy trying to navigate parental desires and the societal expectations of his Brooklyn neighborhood while trying to figure himself out. Readers will be rooting for Bryan to make the right choices even as they understand the wrong ones.”—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Maldonado's novel quietly interrogates toxic masculinity in a story that will resonate with middle-grade readers who, just like Bryan, are questioning who they are, who they want to be friends with, and how those choices will impact their lives.”—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The author shrewdly builds suspense, fueling readers’ dread that Bryan’s poor choices will have dire consequences. . . . This is a psychologically intricate story of the challenges and rewards of family, friendship, and discerning one’s true self.”—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A book about making good choices and knowing who your real friends are, topics that are relatable to nearly everyone. . . . It is an engaging story and readers will find themselves rooting for Bryan.”—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Connection\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eTorrey Maldonado, the author of the critically acclaimed \u003ci\u003eSecret Saturdays\u003c\/i\u003e, is a teacher in Brooklyn, New York, where he was born, raised, and lives. His books reflect his students' and his experiences.\u003cb\u003eChapter 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I’m chilling at the community center where Ma works. She’s cool with her boss and coworkers, so they’re cool with me and my sister, Ava, being at Ma’s job after school.\u003cbr\u003e      Usually, Ava chills for minutes. Me? Hours. I don’t know why Ava doesn’t hang longer. Maybe she’s too busy with her ninth-grade life. But me? I like doing office things, like Ma: reading, being quiet, and chilling for forever. For example, about a month back, I found this empty spot at Ma’s job and asked her if I could use it as my pretend-office. She asked her boss and she told Ma, “Sure. We also have a spare desk-chair and some other supplies Bryan can use.”\u003cbr\u003e      So, right now, I’m doing homework in my office, but this kid named Mike is at Ma’s desk and I’m distracted spying on him.\u003cbr\u003e      He’s a year older than me and about two inches taller. He rocks a sweater like mine, but his kicks are newer and more popular. He has hair like me, Afro-type if we grew it out. Mine’s grown out a little since I need a cut. He just got one.\u003cbr\u003e      Now he’s alone, but I’ve seen him with his mom here, two or three times.\u003cbr\u003e      I didn’t think twice about Mike at first because a lot of kids and their parents come through here. Then I saw him at my school, hanging with seventh graders. He didn’t do his sixth grade in my school. So, why’d he transfer for his seventh grade? I asked Ma, and she said his family was in the Bronx and she helped them get an apartment here in Brooklyn in our projects.\u003cbr\u003e      In school, me and Mike nod what’s up but don’t hang. I see him around the neighborhood too and at the handball courts near us. Then the other day I saw him talking to my pops. I didn’t get why Pa was so friendly to him. And I don’t get why Mike is here now, talking to Ma.\u003cbr\u003e      I squint at them.\u003cbr\u003e      “Did Mike just call Ma ‘Ma’?” I ask Ava, who is in my office looking at my homework on my clipboard.\u003cbr\u003e      Ava stares from the clipboard at him and shrugs. “Who cares? Almost anyone younger than her calls her Ma.”\u003cbr\u003e      That’s true. Ma helps lots of people and they love her. But I don’t like this kid Mike calling her Ma right now.\u003cbr\u003e      I ask Ava, “Why’s he playing her so close?”\u003cbr\u003e      Ava goes back to reading the clipboard, but I can’t look away.\u003cbr\u003e      Mike stares at Ma like she’s his mom for real and gives her a hug.\u003cbr\u003e      Yo! He better let go of my moms.\u003cbr\u003e      Ava interrupts me and points at different spots on my clipboard. “You spelled some stuff wrong.”\u003cbr\u003e      “What? Where?” Nothing should be wrong because I checked it twice like Ma says to do. I look where she points.\u003cbr\u003e      Ugh! She’s right. I hate when she’s right.\u003cbr\u003e      I grab a pencil, take the clipboard, and fix my mistakes.\u003cbr\u003e      By the time I look up again, Mike’s about to leave. He yells, “Bye, Ma!”\u003cbr\u003e      I turn to Ava. “He just called her Ma again!”\u003cbr\u003e      She rolls her eyes. “Because he’s probably her real son. Unlike you.”\u003cbr\u003e      Here she goes again, cracking that stupid joke she’s been cracking since I was in day care, telling me Ma and Pa found me in a trash can.\u003cbr\u003e      Back then, I believed her since me and Ava have different complexions. Hers is chocolate brown. I’m a lighter caramel.\u003cbr\u003e      The first time she said it, I ran to Ma and she showed me our birth certificates. Ava got punished but she never stopped joking I wasn’t her brother—like right now—and for some reason it still bothers me.\u003cbr\u003e      “Well, I wish Mike was my real brother,” she continues. “He’s no momma’s boy like you.”\u003cbr\u003e      My whole head burns like I have a fever. I want to cut on her so hard. But only weak disses come to mind. I finally growl, “Big Head.”\u003cbr\u003e      “Oooh, Big Head. Ouch. I can’t wait until Mike comes to eat.”\u003cbr\u003e      “Eat?”\u003cbr\u003e      “What you think? He calls Ma Ma and he won’t come eat soon? You know anyone who calls Ma Ma ends up eating with us. You saw how she hugged him.”\u003cbr\u003e      Ma sneaks up on us. “What is going on with you two?”\u003cbr\u003e      We shut up.\u003cbr\u003e      “You both were going at it. Now you’re quiet?”\u003cbr\u003e      “Bryan’s mad because you hugged Mike.”\u003cbr\u003e      Ma makes a face like I’m her baby and I have nothing to worry about. “Come here.”\u003cbr\u003e      I go over and she hugs me.\u003cbr\u003e      “You don’t have to worry about Mike. You’ll see tomorrow night. He’s coming for dinner.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003eChapter 2\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I get back from school the next day, Ma tries handing me what looks like a grocery list. I U-turn to bounce.\u003cbr\u003e      “Bryan,” she calls me back. “Here. I need you to go to Hector’s.”\u003cbr\u003e      I sigh, turn around, and take her grocery list as thoughts fly through my head.\u003cbr\u003e      I hope there’s no note for the bodega’s owner.\u003cbr\u003e      I hope there’s no note for the bodega’s owner.\u003cbr\u003e      Ugh! There’s a note for him.\u003cbr\u003e      Why do I have to get groceries with a note and not real money? I wish I had brothers to get groceries.\u003cbr\u003e      Actually, I do have brothers. Before Ma, Pa had three sons from another woman. But I don’t even know what they look like. I used to imagine them. I pictured them stopping bullies from bullying me. I pictured them giving me money when I wanted candy. I pictured them teaching me boy stuff Pa didn’t.\u003cbr\u003e      Now, I’ve stopped imagining them. They’re not coming to Brooklyn for me, and they probably don’t even know about me. Supposedly, they’re grown and live in Philly or somewhere.\u003cbr\u003e      Pa probably doesn’t even know what his sons look like either. Ma says Pa left them when they were like nine or ten and he hasn’t seen them since. Whatevs.\u003cbr\u003e      So, I have to go get groceries. Not Ava. Not imaginary brothers. Me. And I hate it.\u003cbr\u003e ***\u003cbr\u003e I look at Ma’s shopping list. “Can I add chocolate powder?”\u003cbr\u003e      She sighs. “Bryan, we’re just getting what we need.”\u003cbr\u003e      “I need chocolate milk,” I say. I look at the list again. “Okay, how about grapes? We need them.”\u003cbr\u003e      “We have.”\u003cbr\u003e      “They so shriveled,” I joke, “they raisins now.”\u003cbr\u003e      But Ma’s in a serious mood. “Money is tight.”\u003cbr\u003e      I want to say, If money is tight and we have to buy food on credit, why you inviting Mike to dinner?\u003cbr\u003e      But I just take the list and head for the elevator. When it shows up, there’s a puddle of piss in it. Instead of someone cleaning it up, it looks like heads did what they usually do—keep trashing it. Junk-food wrappers and cigarette butts float on the puddle that stinks ammonia-strong.\u003cbr\u003e      I take the stairs.\u003cbr\u003e ***\u003cbr\u003e Pa’s friends hang out on the corner near the bodega.\u003cbr\u003e      His friend Pito lowers his sunglasses and waves when he sees me. Pito could pass for that basketball player Stephen Curry and always rocks skintight T-shirts that show off his abs, no matter how cold it gets outside.\u003cbr\u003e      A bunch of other familiar faces spot me and their faces flip from hard to hi, but not much else flips. Loud Spanish music thumps. Teens who rock the most dip gear sit on milk crates. Some of Pa’s real old—viejo—friends sit at a table and play dominoes and beef about the last move made.\u003cbr\u003e      This is Pa and his homeboys’ spot. I only come by when I’m on my way to the bodega or the arcade next door.\u003cbr\u003e      Ava says I don’t like to hang here because I’m soft. That’s why she calls me a momma’s boy. I’m not a momma’s boy, but I am like Ma since she got me used to being by myself, the way she keeps to herself.\u003cbr\u003e      “Focus on school,” Ma always tells me. “There will be friends later. The wrong friends bring drama, and I don’t want them rubbing off on you.” Anyway, with all that advice, I wonder why she’s letting Mike come over.\u003cbr\u003e      Nicholas, this black older man with dark skin and all-white hair like Magneto from the X-Men, puts his hand on my shoulder and nods at a crate. “Sit! Sit!”\u003cbr\u003e      “No thanks,” I tell Nicholas real kind. “Ma and Pa want me back with the food.”\u003cbr\u003e      Nicholas and Pa’s friends circle me, smiling. Some are a bit bent with that same smell Pa has when he drinks. But the look in their eyes is the same: love. I know they have my back.\u003cbr\u003e      When me and Pa are here, he tells them, “Look out for my son,” and they swear they’d body anyone who messes with me. Once, when Pa told Pito to look out for me, Pito lifted his fist, showed Pa his knuckles, and told him, “Joe, you kidding me? Someone messes with him and they get this.” Pa lifted his fist too, and they winked, pumping fists like boxers before a boxing match.\u003cbr\u003e      I believe Pito and Nicholas and all of Pa’s friends when they say they’ll do whatevs for me. Out here, you need heads who got your back and it feels good that they got mine.\u003cbr\u003e      I go in the store.\u003cbr\u003e ***\u003cbr\u003e “Bryan!” Hector smiles at me while humming along to a Marc Anthony song playing loud from behind the counter.\u003cbr\u003e      I hand him Ma’s shopping list. He stops humming, reads it, and bites his lip. “Your father hasn’t paid his last bill.”\u003cbr\u003e      I look away, wishing I wasn’t here.\u003cbr\u003e      Hector sighs and slides Ma’s list on the counter back to me. “Go ahead. Tell him I’ll add this to his old bill.”\u003cbr\u003e      I grab it, then a handbasket, and walk in the Goya aisle.\u003cbr\u003e      I start getting stuff from shelves, and when I get to the bread, Hector’s tiger-striped cat chills on top of a loaf.\u003cbr\u003e      I want to tell Hector, “Mercedes is smushing the bread.”\u003cbr\u003e      I can’t though. Hector might flip and say, “My cat can do what she wants. You don’t even have money. Be happy I let you get food.”\u003cbr\u003e      I walk up to Mercedes and the bread.\u003cbr\u003e      She hisses.\u003cbr\u003e      Ugh!\u003cbr\u003e      I try to grab a not-smushed bread, and Mercedes swats me mad fast!\u003cbr\u003e      Yo! Her eyes look like she says, Get out my store with your broke butt.\u003cbr\u003e      When I finally have everything, I go to the counter. Hector checks if the list matches what I got. I can’t have nothing extra.\u003cbr\u003e      I stare back at the chocolate powder we can’t afford to buy. Chocolate milk tastes so good.\u003cbr\u003e      Right then, this girl Melanie from my school comes in and watches as Hector bags my stuff and hands me a Post-it. “This is how much your father owes.”\u003cbr\u003e      Dang! Why’d he have to mention us owing money? I nervous-smile at Melanie, and just like I thought, she eyes me all in my sauce and trying to know the flavor.\u003cbr\u003e      What’s for her to figure out? I’m a broke joke.\u003cbr\u003e      Yo! I wish I could explode magician smoke in front of me and—poof—I’d be gone and not here, all embarrassed.\u003cbr\u003e      I nod at Hector. “Okay.”\u003cbr\u003e      “Tell Joe I say hi.”\u003cbr\u003e      Outside his store, I look above everyone’s head—above all the laughs, the arguing, and the music.\u003cbr\u003e      I look toward Manhattan, and I wish things could be different.\u003cbr\u003e      I wish my family had more money.\u003cbr\u003e      I wish that girl didn’t have to see me be broke.\u003cbr\u003e      I wish I had a brother for real.\u003cbr\u003e      I wish I wasn’t in my feelings.\u003cbr\u003e      I wish I didn’t care so much.","brand":"Nancy Paulsen Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233784705253,"sku":"NP9781524740573","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781524740573_8ac63266-a96a-4943-b3bc-095ede1bf183.jpg?v=1767742631","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/tight-isbn-9781524740573","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}