Wes Moore
Hardcover | Pages: 233 pages Rating: 3.83 | 33200 Users | 4214 Reviews
Specify Books To The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
| Original Title: | The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates |
| ISBN: | 0385528191 (ISBN13: 9780385528191) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Memoir and Autobiography (2010) |
Commentary Toward Books The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore.
Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?
That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.
Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.
Details Epithetical Books The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
| Title | : | The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates |
| Author | : | Wes Moore |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 233 pages |
| Published | : | April 27th 2010 by Spiegel & Grau |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography. Academic. School. Biography Memoir. Sociology. Audiobook |
Rating Epithetical Books The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
Ratings: 3.83 From 33200 Users | 4214 ReviewsCriticism Epithetical Books The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
I am reading this book during a very difficult time in the city where I live. This fall, and more specifically the last three weeks, there have been four shootings and three deaths of black males between the ages of 15 and 23. As someone who grew up in this community and has chosen to raise a family here, we as a community are grappling with these senseless deaths. I would not say that Wes Moore is a great writer, but he is an eloquent and impassioned writer on this subject which touches himDisclaimer: I have met the author Wes Moore. He was a student worker in the Career Center when I worked at Johns Hopkins. I didn't know him well, but did interact with him. Even then, it was apparent that he was a pretty extraordinary person. I was excited to read this book because I felt like I "knew" the characters and setting a bit.I think my knowledge of the author colored my ability to see this book as a comparison of two boys with the "there but for the grace of God..." ideal that the
I heard about this when it came out a couple years ago and was intrigued, and then the College of Education I work and go to graduate school in chose it for its "common read," so I read it. It would absolutely be a good discussion starter in undergraduate classes. (Although unfortunately for my College of Education, the "successful Wes Moore" ultimately gets on the right path when his mom enrolls him in a private military school, so it doesn't provide any intel on how public schools can engage
Two Wes Moores diverged in a yellow wood (called Baltimore)And sorry he could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long Wes Moore the Rhodes Scholar stoodAnd looked down one as far as he couldBy interviewing the other Wes Moore in Jessup Correctional InstitutionWhere the path disappears in the undergrowthOf drug-dealing, robbery, and accomplice to murder.Wes took the other, as just as fair,Through military school, time in Afghanistan, and ultimately the business world,And having perhaps the
How do two boys with the same name who live within the same community end up with lives on two completely different paths? After reading this book, my answer is "I'm not sure". The author, Moore, states that it's the result of multiple factors, including luck, and I don't disagree but if this analysis is at the center of this book's premise, then I'm afraid that Moore failed to meet his objective here (and adding a Call to Action by Tavis Smiley at the end of the book didn't solve this problem).
I used to think I had a unique name. In school I was the only one with my name, so, by default, teachers and acquaintances used to think that it was a typo for something else. This lead to some embarrassing moments but I have lived to tell the tale. Wes Moore of Baltimore, Maryland does not have a unique first or last name. While Westley is not all that common, Moore is a surname found throughout the United States, so by the law of averages a name has to recur eventually. When he was about to
I'm not one who usually reads "uplifting" true stories with words like "hope" prominently featured in the title or subtitle, but I gave this one a chance for three reasons. First of all, some of it takes place in neighboring Baltimore in the mid-'90s, which is interesting to anyone, like me, who loved the HBO series The Wire. Secondly, at lot of the kids who come into the library I work at are in the same position as the two young Wes Moores described in the book -- they might succumb to the
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