Lockdown

Walter Dean Myers

May 2010 · Recorded Books · Narrated by J.D. Jackson

About this audiobook

A five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award and a two-time Newbery Honor recipient, Walter Dean Myers has been called "one of the most important writers of children's books of our age" (Kirkus Reviews). Lockdown is the powerful tale of 14-year-old Reese Anderson, who has spent 22 months in a tiny cell at a "progress center." Living in fear and isolation, Reese begins looking within himself to find a way out of the prison system. "The claustrophobia felt by this likable kid trapped in a cruel environment is masterfully evoked..."-Kirkus Reviews

About the author

Walter Dean Myers was born on August 12, 1937 in Martinsberg, West Virginia. When he was three years old, his mother died and his father sent him to live with Herbert and Florence Dean in Harlem, New York. He began writing stories while in his teens. He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Army at the age of 17. After completing his army service, he took a construction job and continued to write. He entered and won a 1969 contest sponsored by the Council on Interracial Books for Children, which led to the publication of his first book, Where Does the Day Go? During his lifetime, he wrote more than 100 fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. His works include Fallen Angels, Bad Boy, Darius and Twig, Scorpions, Lockdown, Sunrise Over Fallujah, Invasion, Juba!, and On a Clear Day. He also collaborated with his son Christopher, an artist, on a number of picture books for young readers including We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart and Harlem, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, as well as the teen novel Autobiography of My Dead Brother. He was the winner of the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award for Monster, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults. He also won the Coretta Scott King Award for African American authors five times. He died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness, at the age of 76.