Babylon Boyz (PB) (1999)

Dante, Pook, and Wyatt are eighth graders in a rundown school in West Oakland, California, plagued by guns, gangs, drugs, and violence, all overseen by inept or indifferent teachers. The three friends are used to only being able to react to the world around them, dodging blows rather than forging their own paths.

Dante, thirteen, was born to a crack-addicted mother and needs an expensive heart operation if he hopes to reach thirty. Pook is newly fourteen and, handsome and muscular, outcasted for being gay, with dreams of medical school he can't afford. Wyatt, thirteen, is awesomely fat and cursed with being smart in a stupid place.

They feel like they're headed for a dead in until they find a suitcase full of cocaine and suddenly face an excruciating decision. Selling the coke means escape. But it also means adding to the crack epidemic that has already destroyed their community.

What price are they willing to pay for freedom.