Upstate by Kalisha BuckhanonBuckhanon, Kalisha. 2005. Upstate. New York: St. Martin's Press. 0312332688. $19.95. Trade Cloth.
Annotation:
After Antonio is sent to prison for murdering his father, he and his girlfriend Natasha write to each other about their lives and dreams for a ten year period.
Awards:
YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2006
Alex Award, 2006
What if your true love with got sent away to prison for ten years? Would you try to stay with him and support him all that time? Sixteen year old, Harlem-resident Natasha is planning to. Her boyfriend Antonio has been locked up for murdering his abusive father. She knows that Antonio is a “wonderful, smart, beautiful, brave person” and that their love is something special, worth waiting for. Natasha’s letters to Antonio lift him up, help him get through the ordeal he has to face. She’s not going to let him fade into becoming the number stamped on his uniform. After Antonio gets into a bad argument with the teacher who comes to the prison, she writes to him:
Well, I’m telling you this, Antonio, I’ll stick with you and be your woman and support you and all that, but I ain’t marrying no bum… I’m going places with my life and I love you and want to be with you, but you gotta keep it together. Like everybody told me after my father died and I started acting up, this ain’t the time to be feeling sorry for yourself. Now the first thing you need to do is apologize to Ms. Harris. You need to write her a letter and see if you can come back. You need that GED Antonio, and anything else they gonna give you so when you get out we can both have our [stuff] together. Don’t write or call me until you write that letter to Ms. Harris. I mean it Antonio.
Upstate is Antonio and Natasha’s letters to each other over a period of ten years. Read it to see what the future holds for these two, and what happens to their love as they get hit by the harsh blows of circumstance.
Image from WorldCat.
What if your true love with got sent away to prison for ten years? Would you try to stay with him and support him all that time? Sixteen year old, Harlem-resident Natasha is planning to. Her boyfriend Antonio has been locked up for murdering his abusive father. She knows that Antonio is a “wonderful, smart, beautiful, brave person” and that their love is something special, worth waiting for. Natasha’s letters to Antonio lift him up, help him get through the ordeal he has to face. She’s not going to let him fade into becoming the number stamped on his uniform. After Antonio gets into a bad argument with the teacher who comes to the prison, she writes to him:
Well, I’m telling you this, Antonio, I’ll stick with you and be your woman and support you and all that, but I ain’t marrying no bum… I’m going places with my life and I love you and want to be with you, but you gotta keep it together. Like everybody told me after my father died and I started acting up, this ain’t the time to be feeling sorry for yourself. Now the first thing you need to do is apologize to Ms. Harris. You need to write her a letter and see if you can come back. You need that GED Antonio, and anything else they gonna give you so when you get out we can both have our [stuff] together. Don’t write or call me until you write that letter to Ms. Harris. I mean it Antonio.
Upstate is Antonio and Natasha’s letters to each other over a period of ten years. Read it to see what the future holds for these two, and what happens to their love as they get hit by the harsh blows of circumstance.
Image from WorldCat.
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