Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An exciting, eye-catching repackage of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers' bestselling paperbacks, to coincide with the publication of SUNRISE OVER FALLUJA in hardcover.Jimmy hasn't seen his father in nine years. But one day he comes back -- on the run from the law. Together, the two of them travel across the country -- where Jimmy's dad will find the man who can exonerate him of the crime for which he was convicted. Along the way, Jimmy discovers a lot about his father and himself -- and that while things can't always be fixed, sometimes they can be understood and forgiven.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

PW gave a starred review to this "stark slice of realism" about an African American teenager getting to know his ex-convict father. Ages 10-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-Jimmy is 14 years old. His biological mother is dead and his father has been incarcerated for the past nine years. As the story opens, Jimmy is living with Mama Jean in a rundown New York neighborhood. One day he returns home to find a stranger claiming to be his father. Crab, as Jimmy's father is called, has been released from prison, and a condition of his release is that he has to get a job. He claims that one is waiting for him in Chicago, and he wants to take his son with him. Mama Jean reluctantly agrees, and an equally reluctant Jimmy begins his journey with Crab. It becomes evident to Jimmy that Crab's story about the job is a lie. Meanwhile, Crab is determined to prove to Jimmy that he did not kill the person he was convicted of murdering. This is a bittersweet story of a father trying to make up for lost time with the son he barely knows. The story does not have a feel-good, happy resolution, but it ends on a hopeful note for Jimmy's future. The degree to which J.D. Jackson is able to capture the essence of the story is wonderful. His narration is even toned yet full of expression and feeling. This is a remarkable yet sad story made even better by a stellar audio performance.-Mary Oluonye, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 7-12. "I'm your father," the man tells teenage Jimmy Little in the dim hallway of the New York City tenement. They don't know each other. Crab, the father, has been in jail for nine years. Critically ill, he's escaped from the prison hospital. He wants to clear his name and wants his son to love him and believe in him. As they drive to Chicago, then down to Crab's childhood home in Arkansas, the police close in, and Jimmy sees the failure of his father's dreams, both in prison and out ("Anything I could have been is gone"). The climax, the moment of truth, is not an expression of love, but a cry of anger: "You don't even know how to be a father." Myers has never written better. He roots the universal father-son quest in a stark social realism, from the inner city to the rural South. Running through the story is the misery of prison, "worse than being a slave"; Jimmy thinks of Crab crying, locked in a cell in the darkness. The scenes are cinematic, taut; the hesitant conversation, sometimes warm, sometimes hostile, keeps falling off into a silence that holds the dreams of what could have been. The main characters are drawn with quiet intensity, and there are also spare vignettes on the road--a weary stranger on a Chicago bus; a malnourished country child clutching a blonde doll; a glimpse of past segregation; a flash of beauty. As in Scorpions [BKL S 1 88], Myers allows no sentimentality, no quick fix of self-esteem. Jimmy's hope is that he has a loving foster mother to return to and a chance to break from his own prison dreams. ~--Hazel Rochman

Horn Book Review

Fifteen-year-old Jimmy hasn't seen his father, Crab, since he was a baby. Myers artfully and gradually reveals the truth about Crab: he's been in prison for the last nine years but is now critically ill; he has escaped in order to clear his name and earn his son's love and respect. This is one of Myers's most memorable pieces of writing. From HORN BOOK 1992, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

An eminent author who's excelled with both tragedy (Scorpions, 1988, Newbery Honor) and funny, lighthearted novels writes in a serious vein but offers a realistic gleam of hope. Jimmy, 14, has been raised by his beloved, dependable ``Mama Jean,'' a friend of parents he doesn't remember; his mother is dead, and his dad, ``Crab,'' is in prison for killing a man in an armed robbery. Suddenly Crab shows up, claiming that he's on parole and has a job in Chicago. Jimmy agrees to go with him, but Crab's lies begin to unravel even before they leave New York: he has kidney failure, and has escaped from a prison hospital (``When they start operating on an inmate, I don't know what they'd be thinking''); the job is an illusion. The two go on to Arkansas, where Crab hopes old friend Rydell will vouch for his innocence: Crab was convicted of murder as the result of another associate's plea-bargaining. Rydell, who once betrayed Crab with his silence, betrays him again by calling the police; Crab surrenders, then dies soon after in the hospital. Myers builds a poignant picture here of a failed man whose clumsy reaching out to his son comes too late to make a real bond. Yet Crab does leave a legacy: going home to Mama Jean, Jimmy--a bright, honest, loving boy who has recently been floundering in his inner-city school and exhibiting signs of real depression--resolves that the next generation will be different: ``He would know just how he was like his son...and where their souls touched and where they didn't.'' Sober, thought-provoking, rich in insight and detail: another splendid achievement. (Fiction. 12+)