Rite of Passage - Tapa dura

"The story is taut and terrible, and the account ofJohnny trapped in a bleak, hostile city will holdteens fast." -- "ALA Booklist""Striking characters, vivid dialogue, dramatic descriptions, and enduring themes introduce a new generation of readers to Wright's powerful voice." -- "School Library Journal"

Harlem. The late 1940s. Fifteen-year-old Johnny Gibbs loves his parents, respects his teachers, and is a model student. Suddenly, his familiar world falls apart. Johnny learns he is really a foster child who the welfare authorities have decreed now must go and live with another family. Stunned by the revelation, Johnny runs away. The startling events that follow, during Johnny's nightlong confrontation with alienation and loneliness, will inexorably push him past the frontiers of childhood and into an unknown, violent world beyond. Rite of Passage, Richard Wright's never-before-published story of Johnny Gibbs's fall from grace, is as pertinent to the fate of many young people today as it was when it was first conceived nearly fifty years ago.