Discovering Wes Moore

Discovering Wes Moore is a young adult book by Wes Moore, published September 10, 2013, by Random House Children’s Books. It is both an autobiography and a biography and based on Wes Moore’s best-selling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, published in 2010. The book is a more accessible adaptation for young adults while maintaining the story of The Other Wes Moore. This summary guide uses the Random House Children’s Books Kindle edition.

Writer Wes Moore received the Rhodes scholarship in 2000, and he was the first Black student at Johns Hopkins to do so. The other Wes Moore was a struggling father, who faced first-degree murder charges alongside his brother Tony for the death of Bruce Prothero, an off-duty police officer and father of five. Writer Wes Moore, unable to shake the case and similarities between himself and the other Moore, began to exchange letters and then meet during prison visits.

Both Wes Moores are from rough neighborhoods in Baltimore and struggled with school, family, finances, and dangerous situations with police in their youth. They both had single mothers who worked and sacrificed for their sons, but writer Wes Moore ended up traveling the world and serving as a White House Fellow while the other was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Discovering Wes Moore adopts a young adult perspective to examine the importance of role models despite issues of race and poverty in America.

Summary

Wes Moore provides wisdom he has learned through his experiences throughout the book. In the introduction he writes, “One step can determine what a person’s tomorrow will look like; I wanted to help make sure that step was the right one” (2). The book opens with a memory of Wes when he is three and his sister Nikki is nine. While playing, Wes punches his sister, and his mother, Joy, sends him to his room. Despite his father, Westley, defending him at his young age, Wes, years later, recognizes his mother’s response was due to the abuse she endured in her past. Wes reflects on his parent’s life.

Joy attended American University in 1968 during the Vietnam protests and civil rights marches. She had met Bill there, a man with a rebellious spirit, and they married two years later. Bill became addicted to drugs and alcohol, and his abuse forced Joy to take Nikki and leave him. Westley was an only son and dreamed of being a TV reporter because of his interest in political justice. He treats Nikki as his own, and Joy and Westley share Wes and his younger sister Shani.

Moore’s father enters the hospital but is simply prescribed pain medication and then dismissed because of his appearance and zip code. A few months before Wes’s fourth birthday, his father collapses and dies after the hospital sent him home the previous day. The hospital treated him for a sore throat, giving him pain medicine that stopped him from feeling his throat close up. Unable to breathe, Westley Moore dies from acute epiglottitis. Joy sleeps on the couch for two years until she sells the home and moves her and the children to the Bronx, where her parents are.

Joy finds that the Bronx she left when she was young is not the same place she is returning to as a widow with her three children. She works multiple jobs to pay for Wes and Shani to attend Riverdale Country School, as Nikki struggles in public school. In the Bronx, Wes’s life revolves around his Jamaican grandparents, the basketball court, and a diverse environment around him. The basketball court is a safe space for him to unwind and immerse himself with others who have completely different lives. Wes feels connected to his neighborhood when he plays basketball, as his life at private school across town makes him feel out of place.

The neighborhood kids make fun of Wes for going to Riverdale, and his grades are slipping. His closest friend, Justin, is concerned about him. Wes begins missing school and hanging out with Shea, an aspiring drug dealer. They nearly get arrested, and Wes’s mother sends him to Valley Forge military academy. Wes attempts to run away but is brought back in by his company, who set him up with a fake escape route. He calls his mother, who tells him everyone has sacrificed a lot for him to be there. Now realizing it costs money to go to military school, he stays and commits.

Wes becomes inspired by a 19-year-old cadet named Ty Hill, who commands respect from his peers. Three years since starting Valley Forge, Wes becomes a platoon sergeant. He’s not just succeeding; he’s excelling and has support surrounding him. Wes moves on to become a paratrooper and learns the valuable lesson of having a backup plan through reflecting on a memory of his uncle while holding his parachute cord. He reminds himself that if anything goes wrong during his jump, he has a backup strapped to his stomach.

Wes furthers his education by interning with the mayor of Baltimore, who tells him to apply for the Rhodes scholarship. Wes thinks about his upcoming trip to South Africa, his support network, and the philosophies he’s studied from the civil rights movement. In South Africa, Mama welcomes Wes into her home in the Xhosa township of Langa. Xhosa boys, like her son, Zinzi, enter the bush four weeks to become men among the elders in meditation and lessons. Zinzi’s fearlessness is a great model for Wes, and Wes’s openness to the Xhosa tribe’s culture helps him understand himself and the importance of identity and purpose for young men.

As his trip is coming to an end, Joy calls him, and he learns about the other Wes Moore and the robbery gone wrong resulting in the death of an officer. Wes enters Johns Hopkins as the other Wes Moore is arrested along with his brother, Tony. The other Wes Moore was raised by a single mother, who studied at Johns Hopkins until the Reagan-era budget cuts left her unable to afford tuition. Eventually’ after winding up in and out of juvenile detention, the other Moore applies to Job Corps, earns his GED, and builds his daughter a playhouse with his new carpentry skills. After his education, he is unable to find work that pays enough and doesn’t require constant hours. Desperate for money, Moore, his brother, and two other men rob a jewelry store and get caught by security, an off-duty police officer, who they shoot dead. The officer was a father of five and Tony and Wes are sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Writer Wes Moore goes to Oxford after college. He is the first Black Rhodes Scholar from Johns Hopkins. Wes returns to Baltimore years later to start a fellowship at the White House, but he can’t stop thinking about the other Wes Moore. He begins writing letters to him and is surprised when he hears back. The two Moores exchange letters, and eventually writer Wes Moore meets him in prison.

Moore describes what it was like compiling all the information and hearing everyone’s stories to write both of the Wes Moore books. Discovering Wes Moore ends with a call to action, with Moore’s purpose in sharing his story and that of the other Wes Moore to provide young readers with examples of how quickly their lives can change, and, more importantly, to open their eyes the possibility of opportunities all around them.