Have you ever been in love with someone who was totally wrong for you? (It's a rhetorical question, don't think too hard on it.) If you've never experienced the uncertainty that comes with the territory, Walter Dean Myers' new book, Street Love will school you on the do's and don'ts of these emotional waters.

Written entirely in free verse poetics, Street Love is the story of Damien, a 17 year old basketball star who excels in school and seems to have a bright and shining future on the horizon. Enter Junice. Junice is a 16 year old woman trying desperately to keep her life together. While her mother serves out a 25 year sentence for selling drugs, Junice must do everything she can to protect and support herself and her younger sister, Melissa. Living a life of borderline desperation and urgency, Junice certainly has no time for boys. Enter Damien.

Who wants to read a book written as poems? Trust me, you do. This isn't the flowery romanticism of long dead authors (although you would do well to pick them up, too). This lyrical onslaught has a tempo all its own. It is the harmonizing of lovestruck characters set to the rhythm of the street. Here's a taste:

DAMIEN

Junice moves uneasily through the room
Her stops punctuated by a soft smile
That sends shivers of delight up my spine
My smile doesn't fit my face anymore
Clumsily I try to hold the space
She gives me between the yellowed curtains
And the darkly stained table where my legs
Cross and uncross searching out casual
The smell of food cooking in some other
Kitchen reminds me that we share the world

Junice moves uneasily through the room
I speak, and her quick mind catches the thought
And tosses it playfully at my feet
I am eager to laugh and she knows it
I talk nonsense and she nods, I babble
And she babbles back. I am excited
Yes, and afraid in her presence

In the faraway next room there are sounds
"Melissa's watching some kiddy program,"
Junice says. "I bribed her to waste her mind."

We are dancers, she with bare feet
And dangling bracelets, the native child
Burned by the copper sun
I am the explorer
Discovering that there are two sides to the ocean

"Damien, what are you thinking?" she asked.

"I am thinking that I am not thinking.
What are you thinking?"

"I am thinking that I am thinking too much,"
     she said

"Is that good or bad?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said, freezing the thought
I stood and put my arms around her

She put her head against my chest
In the long moment that followed
It was impossible to breathe
Too difficult to speak
We were rapt in each other
For a handful of heartbeats
Until, embarrassed, she pushed me away
We had shared more
Than we knew possible
Then I was standing, jacket in hand, at the door
Awkwardly we faced and wondered if Could
Would turn to Yes, her fingertips kissed
My face. My lips barely parted and quickly
Closed.
Down the stairs, and into the cool night
A half-moon floated
High above the jutting chimneys
Perhaps there were two moons
Perhaps a dozen

Street Love hits bookstores on Tuesday (Halloween!). Be sure to let us know what you think!

Monday is never good for anyone, is it? Let's not get in to that whole thing. Right now it's about 95 degrees in our office and I am suddenly troubled by the fact that there is no symbol for "degrees" on this keyboard. Let's not get into that whole thing either.

All that I wanted to say right now was that I was writing some web content for READ magazine today, and as I was going along, I found myself writing the word "disappoint" in a sentence. The exact sentence was "Here, in issue 5, we do not disappoint."

Disappoint? That can't be right. Surely, there are two Ss and only one P? A super quick glance at dictionary.com confirmed my original spelling. How disgusting. Shouldn't that be phonetically sounded out as - dis-uh-puh-point? Why does that word need two Ps? Am I crazy? I can't be the only one who sees how wrong this is? Am I?

Perhaps I am just tired. But sometimes, words just look ugly and wrong to me. Sometimes, I'll stare at a word like "disappoint" or "height" or "circus" and I'll go crazy. I'll just go absolutely nuts trying to figure out how someone originally thought that THAT was the best way to spell that word. And, being unable to come up with any logical conclusion, I'll completely flip out and totally scare away my co-workers.

"Bry, are you OK?"
"I'm disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointed."

Words can kill. Be careful out there.

The following stories are brilliant interpretations of the 1,000 Words image in the September, 2006 issue of Writing Magazine. This concludes our Froggy contest. Coming soon, more of your outstanding 1,000 Words interpretations from the October issue!

Fred the Frog - Coward or Warlord?
- Story by Alexandra Sobczak, Grade 7

Squish, squelch, squish. Fred the frog's feet hopped over the soggy canopy of trees as he hurried to seek shelter underneath the leafy Banyan tree. It was rain season in the Amazon rain forest and everything was wet. Wet trees, wet ground, wet leaves, wet animals, and wet amphibians. Pretty much anything that was in the rain forest was wet.

Fred had never really been very enthusiastic about being wet. Especially the wet animal part, animals always smelled funny when they got wet. His grandma Sophia always said that you can't have trees without rain, and without trees there would be no tree frogs, and without tree frogs... well, then Fred wouldn't exist.

As Fred sat and pondered this, he suddenly saw the orange, white, and black body of a toucan flutter overhead. Fred's heart jumped into his throat, there were many toucans in the Amazon but only one had that unique combination of orange, blue, and red on its wing--like a blood red sun rising up above the crystal, turquoise Amazon River. That toucan's name was Bill, and Bill had taken it upon himself to torment all tree frogs no matter how old, young, big, or small. He had become a regular living terror for all tree frogs everywhere--picking up unsuspecting frogs and dropping them amongst the rainforest trees or simply eating them for his own greedy pleasure. Fred hid under a leaf and tried to look as much like a leaf as possible, hoping Bill wouldn't see him. Fortunately Bill didn't, and he moved on.

"Isn't he just the most annoying bird you've ever met?" a voice said behind Fred. Fred jumped a mile into the air and turned tentatively around to face a beautiful girl tree frog staring back at him with her big, bulgy red eyes.

"Ummmm, yeah I guess," stammered Fred still trying to comprehend that a girl tree frog was actually talking to him.

"Oh I’m sorry," she said, "I’m just barging in on you and not even introducing myself, I'm Meg and I live in the tree with the pink hibiscus plant. What's your name?"

"My name is Fred. I live in the tree with the green vine around it," he answered, still a bit shocked.