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1991 PEN/Norma Klein Citation
1991 Best Book for Young Adults (American Library Association)
1991 Parents' Choice Honors for Storytelling
1992 Recommended list for the National Conference of Christians and Jews
1992 Recommended Books for Reluctant Young Adult Readers (YALSA)

School Library Journal. April 1991
An unusual, affecting book, told from the point of view of a black teenager. Success has always come easily to Denzel Watson and, for the first time in his life, he must come toterms with the spector of failure. He graduates from high school with a 98% grade point average, as president and valedictorian of his class, with plans to enter Princeton in the fall. While at Princeton as part of a six-week minority candidate summer program, Denzel continues to wing it through his classes as he had done throughout his school career. It doesn't work. The son of a middle-class family who participated in and remember the civil rights movements of the 1960s and who have strong feelings of racial identity and pride. Denzel is not supposed to fail. He returns home and spends the rest of the summer selling candy door to door with dropouts and losers who have no other options in life. He decides he will attend a local college in the fall rather than Princeton, but lacks the courage to tell his parents. Denzel's coming to terms with the possibility of failure, as well as his attitudes and eventual confrontation with his family, makes a novel that is very hard to put down. The characterizations are outstanding. Williams-Garcia has aptly captured the feelings of young people in the throes of growing away from their families enough to make their own decisions. The language is colorful and vibrant--these kids sound like students in many high school hallways. Teens everywhere will be able to identify and comiserate with Denzel as he goes through his options, gains confidence, and matures. – Pat Royal. Crossland High School, Camp Springs, MD.