Romiette and Julio by Sharon M. Draper

Read for: Student teaching in the fall
Rating: 3

Romiette and Julio is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, only in Draper's version Romiette is the girl and Julio is the boy. The story takes place in a Cincinnati high school that has a gang problem. Romiette is African American and Julio is Hispanic, and the "gang bangers" don't like their romance.

The plot is obviously predictable and I wouldn't say that this is particularly well-written, but I think that the junior high students I will be teaching this to in the fall will enjoy the characters. Ben, Julio's friend and the Mercutio counterpart, is the most entertaining character in the book. Draper's foreshadowing, particularly concerning a side-plot concerning Ben, I found to be painfully obvious. However, I think that the junior-high students who may not be as used to picking up on the subtleties of character development will enjoy how Ben's story unfolds.

My one concern is that students will brush this off as stupid and patronizing because of how the characters speak. The book was published in 1999, but I can't remember a time when teenagers ever truly spoke the way that Draper portrays, besides in cliche teen movies and magazines. For example, when did anyone ever use "phat" in a sentence besides in Teen Magazine? Well, the characters in Romiette and Julio do!

I am definitely of the more classical line of thought when it comes to teaching, but for the 7th and 8th graders that I will be teaching who may not be ready for Shakespeare, I think that this will be a good lead-in to Shakespeare's classic. There is definitely plenty of material for discussion from Romiette and Julio that is on the students' level, such as race, relationships, poverty, gangs, school, fate, etc. It should be interesting to teach this book!