All The Right Stuff

All The Right Stuff is written by the celebrated author Walter Dean Myers. He is also the author of Bad Boy, Fallen Angels, Monster, and Hoops. Myers is known to write books that have complex story lines. In order to fully understand his books you really have to think about what he is trying to convey. The main topic of this book is the Social Contract. The Social Contract is the big idea in which all of the laws were based upon.

The story takes place in the very poor city of Harlem. There you will find the main character Paul. He has lots of questions but he doesn't know how to get them answered... Paul’s dad died just before the story starts and in order to make money Paul gets a job at the local soup kitchen. There he meets Elijah the old man that runs the soup kitchen. Elijah introduces the idea of the Social Contract to help Paul answer questions about his life and his father. Elijah explains to Paul that the only reason he works at the Soup Kitchen is because it is how he fulfills his part of the Social Contract.  

 Paul later meets Keisha, a young mother who is a super star basketball player but, her bad attitude is keeping her from a scholarship. Paul becomes Keisha’s friend and mentor. Paul takes the opportunity to ask Keisha about the “Social Contract”. Keisha tells Paul that there is no such thing. Then Paul meets Sly who is the big shot of his community. Sly gives Paul his own feelings on the Social Contact. Sly tells Paul that even though there is a Social Contract it doesn’t mean you can’t get yourself ahead in life and that there is nothing that says you must follow it. As Paul hears more and more about the Social Contract it leaves him wondering if the social contract is really that big of a deal.

Myer’s book is fascinating because it is not just a simple read. In has very interesting topics that you wouldn’t usually think about. It also leaves you wondering if our society could also be run on something like the Social Contract. All in all I loved this book. The new ideas about how people interact and how we can improve our conditions really interested me. A+