Scorpions deals with the friendship and loyalty of two twelve-year-old boys, one black and one Puerto Rican.Neither lives with his father. Jamal lives with his mother and sister, and Tito lives with his grandmother in an inner-city neighborhood filled with violence, gangs, poverty, and drugs. Both boys are put into a dangerous situation that will change their lives forever.
This book centers around one event and how Jamal must make the decision to do what is right or what he has always known. The Scorpions are a gun-toting Harlem gang, and Jamal is about to become tragically involved with them. Pushed by the bully, Dwayne, to fight, and problems with the principle Jamal has a difficult time staying in school. His home life is not much better, with his mother working all the time to try to earn money for an appeal for Jamal's older brother, Randy, who is in jail. Randy wants Jamal to take his place as the Scorpions leader until he is free, but the other gang members, especially Angel and Indian, don't like the idea. Only Mack thinks Jamal should be the leader, and it is Mack who gets Jamal a gun. Jamal wants to do the right thing and earn the money to free his brother by working, but he is afraid to go against the Scorpions. He longs to get rid of the gun, but part of him just can't bring himself to do it. As things heat up within the gang, it reaches new level when Mack kills Angel and Indian is thrown in jail. Jamal eventually pulls free of the gang's bad influence, but only through the narrowest of escapes.
Scorpions deals with a range of material The main one is the loss of innocence. It also deals with problems young people face in inner city living. Death and of course it also deals with different family Dynamics and how no family is exactly alike . This book is important because it allows teachers to bring to the classroom difficult topics.
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