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I remember reading and enjoying this children’s book from 1979 when I was about eleven, but that and the premise was all I recalled about it.
A group of black teenagers in New York City form the Action Group, a do-gooder club. After world peace proves elusive, they track down the slumlord of a local dump and demand that he improve conditions in the apartment building. He promptly tricks the narrator, Paul Williams, into buying the building for a dollar.
Now Paul and his friends are landlords. After an initial burst of enthusiasm at the idea of helping the tenants and making a profit as well, they discover why the slumlord was so desperate to get rid of the place. The place is falling apart, half their tenants don’t pay rent, another tenant is a maniac named Askia Ben Kenobi who karate-chops the banister to pieces, and Paul and Action Group founder Gloria get locked into a tenant’s bathroom while trying to fix the doorknob.
Paul and the Action Group desperately try to keep the place going – throwing a rent party, hiring an accountant (who moonlights as the head of an investment firm called Financial Banana), creating mental shields to zap Askia Ben Kenobi – while also trying to clear a friend of theirs who’s been charged with theft.
While there is an appealing sense of community and lots of individual funny and touching moments, the book doesn’t live up to its terrific premise. Characters are introduced and seem to be major, only to disappear without an explanation or ever being mentioned again. The “clear our friend’s name” plot is not integrated with the “young landlords” plot. Lots of funny bits are introduced, then dropped without ever coming to a climax or conclusion.
The slang and some of the ideas are distractingly dated. "Karate-chop" is not actually a karate term. Everybody trusts the cops. Gloria is into women’s lib while Paul doesn’t believe in it. (It’s clear that Myers is in favor, but that whole subplot is handled in a manner that feels very old-fashioned.)
This book didn’t age well. I wish I could see what Myers would do with the premise if he tackled it now.
Click here to buy it from Amazon: The Young Landlords
A group of black teenagers in New York City form the Action Group, a do-gooder club. After world peace proves elusive, they track down the slumlord of a local dump and demand that he improve conditions in the apartment building. He promptly tricks the narrator, Paul Williams, into buying the building for a dollar.
Now Paul and his friends are landlords. After an initial burst of enthusiasm at the idea of helping the tenants and making a profit as well, they discover why the slumlord was so desperate to get rid of the place. The place is falling apart, half their tenants don’t pay rent, another tenant is a maniac named Askia Ben Kenobi who karate-chops the banister to pieces, and Paul and Action Group founder Gloria get locked into a tenant’s bathroom while trying to fix the doorknob.
Paul and the Action Group desperately try to keep the place going – throwing a rent party, hiring an accountant (who moonlights as the head of an investment firm called Financial Banana), creating mental shields to zap Askia Ben Kenobi – while also trying to clear a friend of theirs who’s been charged with theft.
While there is an appealing sense of community and lots of individual funny and touching moments, the book doesn’t live up to its terrific premise. Characters are introduced and seem to be major, only to disappear without an explanation or ever being mentioned again. The “clear our friend’s name” plot is not integrated with the “young landlords” plot. Lots of funny bits are introduced, then dropped without ever coming to a climax or conclusion.
The slang and some of the ideas are distractingly dated. "Karate-chop" is not actually a karate term. Everybody trusts the cops. Gloria is into women’s lib while Paul doesn’t believe in it. (It’s clear that Myers is in favor, but that whole subplot is handled in a manner that feels very old-fashioned.)
This book didn’t age well. I wish I could see what Myers would do with the premise if he tackled it now.
Click here to buy it from Amazon: The Young Landlords