Bad Boy: A Memoir

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

Brown Girl Dreaming

• 2014 memoir in verse by Jacqueline Woodson. Woodson is, like Myers, a writer of middle grade and YA fiction.
• connects to themes of being Black in mid-20th-century America (Woodson was born in 1963), the desire for community, and the power and limitations of language
• Consider how factors like gender and place (Woodson grows up partially in the South) affect Myers and Woodson’s experiences of race and racism.
• Brown Girl Dreaming on SuperSummary  

“Sonny’s Blues”

• 1957 short story by James Baldwin (content warning: contains discussions of drug use and dependency)
• connects to themes of being black in mid-20th-century America and the relationship between parents and children
• Myers describes “Sonny’s Blues” as the story that “gave [him] permission to write about [his] own experiences” (Chapter 19). Compare and contrast Myers’s childhood with that of the story’s narrator and his brother: What in particular might Myers have related to?
• “Sonny’s Blues” on SuperSummary

“My Papa’s Waltz”

• 1942 poem by Theodore Roethke (content warning: possible implications of abuse)
• connects to the theme of the relationship between parents and children
• Like Myers, Roethke grew up in a working-class home and sometimes struggled to relate to his parents because of his own literary interests. Compare and contrast the way Roethke and Myers depict this tension.
• “My Papa’s Waltz” on SuperSummary

Anything but Typical

• 2009 middle grade novel by Nora Raleigh Baskin
• connects to the theme of the power and limitations of language
• Compare Jason’s difficulties expressing himself as someone with autism to Myers’s experience of his speech impediment.
• Anything but Typical on SuperSummary

Football Genius

• 2007 middle grade novel by Tim Green
• connects to themes of the nature of personal identity and the relationship between parents and children
• Compare and contrast how Troy and Myers define themselves in relation to activities like sports, writing, etc.
• Football Genius on SuperSummary

Other Student Resources

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

• 1798 Romantic-era poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Myers references this work as one he especially enjoyed reading in school: What do you think appealed to him about it? How might he have identified with the mariner’s isolation?
• “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” on SuperSummary

“Author Walter Dean Myers: ‘Reading Is Not Optional’ for Kids"

• 2012 PBS NewsHour feature on Myers and his work with children

Hoops

• 1983 young adult novel by Walter Dean Myers
• This story about Lonnie, a young basketball player growing up in Harlem, is among Myers’s best-known works.
• Hoops on SuperSummary

Teacher Resources

“Walter Dean Myers”

• official webpage for the author, including a bibliography and press coverage