The Boy Without a Flag

Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year Abraham Rodriguez, Jr. captures what it's like to grow up too fast amid the crushing poverty of the South Bronx in this collection that depicts a gritty slice of New York Latino life. Boy Without a Flag is "about the rancid underbelly of the American Dream," says the author. "These are the kids no one likes to talk about; they are seen as the enemy by most people. I want to show them as they really are, not as society wishes them to be." In these truth-telling stories about his neighborhood of Puerto Rican adolescents growing up in the South Bronx, Rodriguez introduces us to the youth who fight every day for survival in our cities.