# Motown and Didi

**Author:** Walter Dean Myers
**Grade range:** Grades 4–8
**First published:** 1984
**Page count:** 180
**Genre:** Fiction
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/motown-and-didi
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Motown lives in a burned-out building one floor above the rats, searching out jobs every day, working his muscles every night, keeping strong, surviving. Didi lives in her cool dream bubble, untouched by the Harlem heat that beats down on her brother until only drugs can soothe him. Didi escapes, without needles, in her tidy plans and stainless visions, etchings of ivycovered colleges where her true life will begin. Didi can survive inside her own safe mind, until Motown steps into her real world and makes it bearable. Together they can stand the often brutal present. What about the future?

## Where this book is assigned

### Coretta Scott King Author Award

- **recommended** · 4th grade — [source: Coretta Scott King Author Award (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 1985 winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King_Award)
- **recommended** · 5th grade — [source: Coretta Scott King Author Award (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 1985 winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King_Award)
- **recommended** · 6th grade — [source: Coretta Scott King Author Award (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 1985 winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King_Award)
- **recommended** · 7th grade — [source: Coretta Scott King Author Award (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 1985 winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King_Award)
- **recommended** · 8th grade — [source: Coretta Scott King Author Award (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 1985 winner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King_Award)

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