When We Ride

Gr 9 Up–Diego “Benny” Benevides and his best friend, Lawson, have considered each other brothers ever since a bullying incident as elementary students. Now seniors in high school, both boys are struggling to help their single mothers by following vastly different paths. Benny’s alcoholic mom tells him “Don’t be like me. Be better.” He is very studious, working for low wages at a diner, striving to go to college and make her proud. She takes the bus to work so she can give her son “Maria Carmen,” her 1980 Cadillac DeVille, to help him meet those goals. Meanwhile, Lawson is not interested in school and makes his money selling weed. When he first asks Benny for rides, it seems more benign but selling spirals quickly into heavier drugs. Lawson cannot say no to his controlling and violent dealer, Trent. Benny’s gripping introspective conflict between his own future and loyalty to Lawson is palpable. The novel in verse format is perfect for this character-driven, issue-oriented storyline mash-up, as readers delve deep into the battle playing out in the protagonist’s mind. Ogle is exceptionally skillful at inviting readers into the emotional intensity of each decision Benny makes, with addiction and poverty laid raw using spare, carefully selected free verse. This pairs well with similarly themed verse novels where decision-making is paramount, like Jason Reynolds’s Long Way Down and Ellen Hopkins’s classic “Crank” series.