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The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (2010)

by Wes Moore(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0385528191 (ISBN13: 9780385528191)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Spiegel & Grau

review 1: Read as a selection for a discussion group, I knew nothing about this book. The thing I kept thinking while reading was that the back of the book described two kids who shared a similar background, the same name, living blocks apart, whose lives ended up very differently. In fact, their backgrounds seemed more different than alike to me. Wes the Rhodes Scholar, was the product of college educated professionals, even his grandparents were educated and professionals. He went to private schools (at great financial sacrifice) and had a vast support group. His father was "absent" due to his death, not abandonment. The Other Wes (TOW) had none of that, his father gone, his teen-aged mother struggled raising herself, let alone her small children. The two Wes' shared the same neig... morehborhood only for a short while. I wondered had Wes the Scholar stayed in that Baltimore neighborhood, would their lives have ended up so differently. Or had TOW's mother been able to afford military school for him...perhaps his life would have been different too. I understand they both struggled for a while, I get that. They.both.struggled. That being said, I looked at this book as two separate stories that were OK, each on their own. The part I liked about this book (while some said he was self-indulgent), was that while Wes the Scholar was rightly proud of his accomplishments (and they are major accomplishments by anyone's standards)...he also seems filled with gratitude and awareness of how things could have turned out very differently for him. I intuited humbleness and awe, not self-indulgence. I would have liked to read more about the two Wes' interviews together. The book hinted that The Other Wes Moore was trying to make the best life he could for himself in prison, which is an accomplishment. I would like to know if my inkling is true. I would read the memoir of TOW. Lastly, this should make for a lively book discussion and am looking forward to it.
review 2: I started this over the summer then got distracted by other books and put it down. Wes Moore is coming to speak at our school today (this was the 7th-9th grade required read), so it was high time to finish. What a compelling story, not necessarily because of the claim on the back that these two kids "both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods with their crews" etc, since, let's be real, the author grew up far more privileged than "the other Wes Moore," attending two private schools outside Baltimore, living with grandparents and a mother who played an active role in shaping his values, and with the absence of a father, not because he wanted to leave, but because he was sick and passed. The premise is therefore specious, but doesn't diminish the overall message and value of the book as one that invites us to reflect on some of the following ideas:"It made me think deeply about the way privilege and preference work in the world, and how many kids who didn't have 'luck' like mine in this instance would find themselves forever outside the ring of power and prestige. So many opportunities in this country are apportioned in this arbitrary and miserly way, distributed to those who already have the benefit of a privileged legacy" (160-161).The "other Wes Moore" tells the author, "From everything you told me, both of us did some pretty wrong stuff when we were younger. And both of us had second chances. But if the situation or the context where you make the decisions don't change, then second chances don't mean too much, huh?" to which the author looks around and reflects: "These incarcerated men, before they'd even reached a point of basic maturity, had flagrantly--and tragically--squandered the few opportunities they had to contribute productively to something greater than themselves" (66-67). The "other Wes Moore" later tells the author, "We will do what others expect of us. If they expect us to graduate, we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, then that's where we will end up too. At some point you lose control" (126). The author "sympathized with him, but [...] recoiled from his ability to shed responsibility seamlessly and drape it at the feet of others" (126).While everyone can make his/her own choices in any given moment, of course, I wonder: How much can one affect his "context" when the problems are deepened by elements outside of his control? And as an educator, I continuously reflect on how we can inform/teach/inspire/encourage/empower new decision-making... good decision making... I look forward to what WM has to share today. In the epilogue, he writes, "I think the best we can do is give our young people a chance to make the best decisions possibly by providing them with the information and the tools and the support they need" (179). My role as a teacher is to continuously, wholeheartedly, engage in this work. less

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