P.S. Be Eleven

Darnell spends most of his days spending time with other discharged soldiers at the park. He spends his nights experiencing bad dreams or pacing the floor. When he takes his nieces out for a trip to the candy store, he forgets to tell his old, fanciful stories about a knight defending the neighborhood from urban decay and rescuing a princess. Fern insists that he tell the same old stories, but Vonetta tells Fern that such stories are for babies. All the girls are offended when one of Darnell’s old acquaintances questions the righteousness of a Black man going abroad to fight on behalf of the United States against Southeast Asian people.

Mr. Mwile is strict. He punishes the entire class when one person misbehaves. One day, the class watches an anti-drug film that stars pop-rock star Sonny Bono. This is a shock since Bono looks like a hippie. (A hippie is someone who opposed mainstream cultural values during the 1960s; some also experimented with substance use.) The class laughs and sings one of Sonny and Cher’s songs instead of taking the film seriously, so Mr. Mwile punishes the class with double math.