Nearly 10 years into a life sentence for murder, Chris Wilson appears at a sentence reduction hearing in front of Judge Cathy Serrette. The Prologue describes Wilson’s day: awake, dressed, and out of his cell by four o’clock in the morning, shackled and transported nearly an hour to the courthouse in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, placed in a holding cell with five Spanish-speaking gang members (Wilson speaks fluent Spanish, so he knows they think he might be a snitch), and finally taken to the courtroom. After the state’s attorney recounts his crime, Wilson addresses Judge Serrette: “Your honor, I want to tell you the truth” (6).

As an elementary school student in the 1980s, young Chris Wilson lives part of the time with his maternal grandparents, Grandma and Big Daddy, in their duplex on Division Avenue, part of a poor neighborhood in Northeast Washington, DC. Wilson attends Richardson Elementary School, where his sister Leslie persuades him to join the track team. Although he struggles with grades due to stress and fear, Wilson nonetheless reads books, spends time at the Capitol View Library, and learns about the ancient library at Alexandria, Egypt. He also discovers Plato’s