Rating: 
Summary: Strong Medicine
Review: This book scared me. Perhaps I was naive in believing that the criminal element in my race is mostly sprung from poor neighborhoods and sired in one-parent households. McCall proved that the call of the streets is so strong that it takes almost superhuman effort (and luck) to raise a black man safely to adulthood. The scariest part of the book is that McCall has no excuse for his early behavior. The book is good in that it shows things the way they really are. I, too, had to relfect on friends and relatives from my own middleclass neigborhood who went the way of the streets, though unlike McCall, they ended up dead or imprisoned for life. The book's weakness is in that it is never clear to the reader that McCall has truly understood the error of HIS ways, not just society's....
Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding Work
Review: I read this book a couple of years ago. The encounters of Mr. McCall were vivid and realistic. I can attest to some of the things that were going on in his life because I grew up in a big city. I think his triumphs in life were a revealing message to people that you don't have to become what your surroundings are. This book inspired me to read more books. Because of this book, I was encouraged to devote more to the community. I loved this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Look
Review: This book was one of the most moving and honest books that I have read. As a young black female, this book gave me a better insight into the mind of the black male. I appreciated the honest accounts of his life and have learned from the book to understand black males.
Rating:
Summary: TRUTH
Review: I'M A 17 YEAR OLD FEMALE AND I REALLY ENJOYED THIS BOOK. IT HAS ALOT OF TRUTH ON WHAT GOES ON IN HIS LIFE AND ANY BLACK PERSON'S LIFE. WHEN I WAS HANGING AROUND MY FRIENDS I WOULD SEE WHAT BLACK PEOPLE GO THROUGH AND WHAT WAS SAID TO THEM AND I KNOW WHAT THEY FELT. I REALLY LIKE HOW HE SAID HOW IT WAS LIKE IN PRISON. HE LEARD ALOT OF THINGS HE WOULD NEVER LEARNED BEING OUT ON THE STREETS. SO I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANYONE WHO THINKS KICKING ON THE STREETS IS COOL AND FUN AND THINK THEY WOULD EVER GET CAUGHT FOR WHAT CRIME THAY COMMIT. IT SHOWS THE REAL PROSPECTIVE OF PRISON AND WHAT ITS LIKE.
Rating:
Summary: A Pre-Millenial Masterpiece
Review: From the very first page, Nathan McCall's voice is fresh, distinct and honest. Although Makes Me Wanna Holler (MMWH) is, on one level, "just" the story of one male's journey from boyhood to manhood, the windows of his life that McCall opens to readers offer so much more.For one thing, the book is filled with rich, emotional details. Whether he is describing childhood insecurity at being the "new kid" or the excruciating nervousness of slow dancing for the first time or the rage of an adult professional being blindsided by office politics, Nathan's words caused me to see what he saw, hear what he heard and feel what he felt. The chapter entitled "W.E. Waters" was one of my favorites for this reason. The descriptions of the hairstyles, fashion trends, dances and music of that time--"before my time"--blended seamlessly with the descriptions of sweaty palms and fear of looking stupid in front of your peers --feelings young people of all races experience, no matter what years they went to middle school. This chapter is as universal and timeless as Judy Blume's book "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret" has been since the early 70s. I will be sharing it with my girls--11 and 13--if either of them starts agonizing over whether boys they like feel as emotional as they and their friends do when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex. The heavier issues that recur in more depth as the book progresses are just as detailed and even better-written. Although every word is not bedtime story material for the whole family, there is still something for everyone in those chapters. Experiences recounted by McCall are an eye-opener for anyone who currently has a school-aged son, daughter, nephew, neice, grandchild, cousin, godchild or neighbor--black, white, yellow or brown. Again, without denying his identity as an African American man and an individual, McCall's words strike universal chords. As he writes about other life stages--high school, early adulthood, experiences with education, adult peer pressure, college, racial insensitivity, the criminal justice system, finding a job,...--he maintains that balance between telling his own story and yet speaking for milllions of individuals who cannot or will not speak for themselves, and also speaking to millions of others who might not hear this story through any other medium but the pen of a gifted writer. Whatever your opinion of Nathan McCall as a person may be once you turn the last page of this book, his skill as a contemporary voice in American letters rivals make Makes Me Wanna Holelr a must-read for you.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, powerful
Review: I am a 15 year old, white female. I read this book last year, when I was in 8th grade. It was my choice to read this book and although it took me about 2 months to finish it it was very worth it! I enjoyed every minute of it. It remains on my shelf and I plan on reading it again. I have also enjoyed reading books such as "The Color of Water" by James McBride. I would recommend this book to ANYONE! It is a powerful book. McCall takes you on the journey through his life. I am planning on reading his other book VERY soon (right after I finish the book I am currently reading.) I would also recommend "Manchild in the Promised Land" by Claude Brown if you enjoyed this WONDERFUL book.
Rating:
Summary: A Winner
Review: I recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand what has unfortunately become the "black male experience." Nathan McCall is not making a commentary about the lives of all black men, just his own. However, I believe that he has captured what many minorities have dealt with in this memoir. He is not looking for pity or fans. His honesty allows him to look at his life in retrospect and have a great outlook on his experiences. His style is entertaining. His story is inspiring.
Rating:
Summary: Read Me
Review: Superb. This 'Work of Art' is, by all means, a medium to open doors in the minds of not only Blacks, young and old but anyone who is in a minority situation. The author tells one story, 4 times. How Whites affected his life as a boy and now as a man and how he saw it, the interaction, internal and from another point of view. Though the book at times has rough tones, it is easy to take the examples given and use them in other situations. For example, the author tells of his weekend furlow from jails, coming home, hanging with some friends and the ambivalence about doing one thing or another that used to be done in his recent past. This was much like a kid coming home from college for a weekend, after being away from his parents, changed in life a bit, comes home and see what he can and can't do. Take the cookie! In reading, the author opens the flood gates of knowledge we know, just have not fully processed. The result, we don't read the book , we just relate more and more from chapter to chapter. It made me want to Holler, for more to read this book. Open the mind. In closing, I would like to say that I enjoyed this book but I don't feel it promotes or glories what he did. It only shows that he, as many do ,can get caught up in 'a mess'. ...
Rating:
Summary: hit it right on the head
Review: i could not but it down. It get right to it.I could not tell the way i feel better, because this is how a young black man glow up in america.
Rating: 
Summary: The unfairness
Review: The beginning starts off with Nathan and his friends jumping a white boy who was lost in his black neighborhood. It is startling to begin a book with such a gruesome description. Nathan has an unbelivable amount of anger in him, which is one of the reasons he wrote the book. In his childhood, he was exposed to black people who hated whites with a passion. He lived in a completely black community, so when he was forced to go out in to the "system", meaning the white work force, he was abruptly starled. In the book, Nathan repeates many times his anger with the way whites rule America. He has several children throughout his younger life, and when each one is born, he expresses his frusturation and sorrow for his children in this "white ruled world." I think his anger is understandable, considering how much whites degraded him througohut his life. But he seems to dwell more on the past rather than the present, and that keeps him from gettting to know white people who have no prejudices. His obvious anger is expressed through alot of repetion of what he thinks of whites. The fact that whites ruled the work force got boring after about the fifth time he said baisically the same line within two chapters. But he did get his point across boldly.
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