Citation:

Annotation:

Andy Jackson was driving the car that crashed one night after a game, killing Robert Washington, his best friend and the captain of the Hazelwood High Tigers. It was late, and they'd been drinking, and now, months later, Andy can't stop blaming himself. As he turns away from family, friends, and even his girlfriend, he finds he's losing the most precious thing of all: his ability to face the future.

With perceptiveness and compassion, Sharon Draper portrays an African-American teenager who feels driven to consider suicide in the wake of a devastating tragedy.

Author's Information:

Sharon M. Draper is the acclaimed author of the Sassy series. She is also the author of many books for teens, including the New York Times bestsellers Copper Sun, the 2007 Coretta Scott King Award winner, and We Beat the Street. She also wrote Forged by Fire, the 1998 Coretta Scott King Award winner, as well as Tears of a Tiger, winner of the CSK/John Steptoe New Talent Award, and The Battle of Jericho and November Blues, both Coretta Scott King Honor Books.

Ms. Draper explains how she came to write the Sassy series. “Several years ago I met a little girl, an avid reader, who was about eight or nine years old,” she says. “Something was missing in the books available to her. She wasted no time in telling me, ‘You need to write some books for girls like me!’ Sassy was born that day. I wanted to create a little girl with both spunk and sparkle, a child with grace and glitter. Sassy and her seemingly bottomless sack are ready to greet the world with power and pizzazz!”

Ms. Draper is also a professional educator. She has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year and was selected as Ohio’s Outstanding High School Language Arts Educator and Ohio Teacher of the Year. She holds three honorary doctorates.

She has been honored at the White House six times and was chosen as one of only four authors in the nation to speak at the Library of Congress National Book Festival Gala in Washington, D.C., and to represent the United States in Moscow at their Russian Book Festival.

Ms. Draper is an accomplished public speaker who addresses educational and literary groups of all ages. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband and a golden retriever named Honey.

Rewards: None.

Reading Level: Grades 9-12

Genre: Series Young Adult

5/5 stars
That's what I remember--and that's what I'll never be able to forget.

As a freshman in high school I was really depressed. I found this book in my English teacher’s room and asked to borrow it, thinking it sounded interesting. What I got was more than that. I got an experience I took with me forever. Sharon M Draper’s Hazelwood High trilogy has stuck with me since the day I started it and today I decided to revisit the first book, Tears of a Tiger.

I loved everything about this book, just as I did when I read it at the age of fourteen. I understood and connected with Andy more than I could with most characters I’ve read about in the past. I loved the formatting of it. From conversations to newspaper clippings, it was always changing forcing me to keep paying attention. The chapters are short, and every word, every detail aims to serve a purpose. A few amazed me during the reread. First, it’s amazing how much she made me care for the characters without much insight into their minds. We only get to see what they would want people to see for the most part. Second, how much I cried even knowing what was going to happen. Finally, how well she set things up for the second book.

I recommend this book to everyone. It’s powerful, emotional, and deals with a subject matter people tend to avoid in my experience. Thank you Sharon M Draper for writing a book that has meant so much to me over the years.

Tears of a Tiger (Hazelwood High, #1)

Sharon M. Draper

     Tears of a Tiger is the first book of the Hazelwood High trilogy. The books center around a main character named Andy Jackson and his life after a car accident which claimed the life of his bestfriend and teammate Robert Washington. Andy becomes consumed by the guilt of driving the car that killed his best friend and he contemplates suicide and other methods of harm.

     Though the book mainly focuses on Andy and how he copes, there are focuses on his friends and how they coped as well.

Review: Looking at this book as a whole, it was good. If I were to nitpick and point out every little flaw like I tend to do in my reviews, this book might be knocked down a star. Despite this, there definitely were things I enjoyed about this book. The format was very creative and made this an interesting, face-paced read overall. There is absolutely no description in the book (which I thought would be detrimental to the reading experience, but actually turned out quite fine), the characters have terrible grammar (which, admittedly, became annoying at parts), and the emotions were actually quite pervasive despite the overall setting. The ending where Andy committed suicide really got to me. Especially because all of his friends, in their letters to him, seemed angry with him and did not seem to be mourning his death (with the exception of Keisha).

Final Verdict: Three stars. Overall, the book was good. I wasn't really a fan of the stereotyping and the language used [i.e. syntax and diction, not necessary because of the swearing (if there even was any)]. If you need a quick read to toy with your emotions a little, pick this up.