# Monster

**Author:** Walter Dean Myers
**Lexile:** 670L
**Grade range:** Grades 8–11
**Age range:** 13–17
**First published:** 1999
**Page count:** 281
**Genre:** Young Adult Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780064407311`
**ISBN-10:** `0064407314`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/monster
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for felony murder in New York City; he narrates his experience in alternating screenplay and diary form from the Manhattan Detention Complex. Myers's Printz-winning novel is assigned widely in urban high school English units on criminal justice and narrative form.

## Themes

- criminal justice
- race and adolescence
- identity and reputation
- narrative reliability
- incarceration

## Content notes

- murder (central, reported)
- incarceration
- violence in prison

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 13+

## Where this book is assigned

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 8th grade · Illinois — [source: Illinois Learning Standards grade 8 aligned reading](https://www.isbe.net/)
- **recommended** · 9th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 9th grade · New York — [source: NY Next Gen Learning Standards grade 9 aligned reading](https://www.nysed.gov/)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 2 states: TX, FL. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

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