A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich

by Alice Childress

Book Overview

"An unusually honest and forceful novel told in trenchant language by an impressive variety of conflicted people who are involved with a 13-year-old heroin addict".--Kirkus Reviews. "Packs honesty,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380001322
• ISBN13: 9780380001323
• Release Date: April 1982
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.2" x 6.9"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

A MUST READ OMG!!! Small and packs a punch !

This book is very powerful. I don’t know how else to explain it. Makes you sit down and look at how society is today when it comes to the way the black community, especially how black boys are treated. Overall the theme of the book is obviously drug abuse but it’s something much deeper than that. I think the author does a phenomenal job of showing how contradicting people/society can be and how dangerous loneliness is... even with a sense of humor. I recommend that any and everyone read this book. Let it sit on your mind for a moment and take it all in. It’s easy to relate to the characters in this novel. Alice Childress does a wonderful job of bringing you into Benjies reality, his world and everyone in it.

Tierra aka: scooby

Hi im 13 years old and im from the ghetto but i loved this book this book was good and got my atendtion all my teachers were shock i go to horce mann middle school and this book relate to how i am around that and trying to make and i would become a lawyer so this is the best book i ever read and keep reading this book.

The Realist book ever...

I read this book a couple times, why I read it more than once was because the First Time I read it I was too young to grasp anything from it. Now I notcie how serious the book and though there is so much fowl languge in the book it seems theres a reason for it. Also when I read the book at times the character Benji made me mad, and sometimes dissappointed at him, because his point of view on Society, but now I realize he's an angry crack head in denial trying to hide what he knows he is...A Pot Head...

Excellent novel

Childress does an excellent job of putting the perspectives of all the characters associated with Benjie or to his problem in this novel. Point of view is a defining characteristic of this novel. Within the twenty-three first person narratives, the reader hears the dialect, different knowledge levels, and thinking processes of all the character's, from the local drug pusher to Benjie's high school teachers. This made the plot a bit harder to follow at first, but had it been written any other way it would have lost a definite sense of authenticity.

A powerful punch

Powerfully and courageously honest about the lives of the young, African-American heroin addict Benjie and those around him ... There are no easy answers in this book. I think it's a story people need to hear, whether we want to or not. I couldn't put it down; I will never forget it; I only hope I learned from it. Moving and amazing.

Excellent book!!!!

Childress did an excellent job of capturing the experience of many african-american teenage males.