Showing Children of the Night by Jess Mowry

Enter what is an alternative universe to most of America, a West Oakland, California neighborhood where 13-year-old Ryo is luckier than many kids because he has a mother, Tracy, who loves him, and an extended family of father-figure, Brownie, a Vietnam War combat veteran who now runs a shabby cafe, "grandfather" Jon, a World War II Merchant Marine sailor, and "older brother" Suntop, a 19-year-old pimp and a fan of Elfquest who believes in magic and treats his young ladies like elf princesses. Ryo also has a loyal best-friend, a cheerful chubby boy named Chipmunk. And, Ryo has a dream of becoming an airplane pilot.

Still, Ryo cannot remain unaffected by a seemingly hopeless environment from which there appears to be no escape, doomed to be grounded all his life without the wings of money. He endures the sneers and racial slurs of white kids at a mall while window-shopping a skateboard he can't afford. "There's all kinds of ways to be hungry," he tells Chipmunk. "An' money seem to be the only thing that fills you up."

And, for kids in Ryo and Chipmunk's 'hood, there seems to be only one way to get money... by working for the young drug dealer, Big Bird. Sensing Ryo's intelligence, 15-year-old Big Bird grooms him for inside work and promises to fulfill Ryo's dream, while making Chipmunk a runner to distribute his wares to street-corner dealers and carry back the profits. Ryo also befriends Big Bird's bodyguard, a strange silent boy named Greyhound who ran away from Mississippi and is bound to Big Bird for saving his life, though realizing he's just as trapped as the poor little suckers out on the street.

Ryo is warned by Suntop that he's fallen in with evil things; and also by Shane -- an enormously fat and intelligent boy whose way of escape is the World Wide Web and his dream for a future in computers -- that he and Chipmunk had better get out while they still can.

But, how else can Ryo earn the money to escape the 'hood and make his dream of flying come true?