If+I+Grow+Up

__Titlle__: __If I Grow Up Author__: Todd Strasser __Publisher__: Simon and Schuster __Copyright__: 2009 __Number of pages__: 220 Trying to live a quality life: difficult. Trying to live a quality life while living in the projects: almost unattainable. DeShawn, a young boy who lives in the Frederick Douglass Project is stuggling just to stay alive, as his family is in poverty, so he can't afford the things his friends have. Douglass is a place where gunshots act as alarm clocks, almost nobody is educated, and everybody knows somebody that has been killed. Douglass's gang, the Disciples, is constantly at war with their rival neighbor gang, the Gangstas of the Gentry Project. As Deshawn gets older, he meets a girl named Tanisha, a girl from Gentry, and as Deshawn gets older, he's forced to make a life-changing decision: stay in school and continue to be poor, or risk becoming a Disciple and raising his family out of poverty.