Crews: Gang Members Talk to Maria Hinojosa

After the 1990 stabbing of a Utah tourist by a NYC gang member, NPR correspondent Hinojosa conducted an ``All Things Considered'' interview with members of a Queens, N.Y., ``crew'' (also called posses or gangs). Building on that report, she explores this world through seven interviews with young Queens gang members. They speak candidly, often with disturbing detachment, about a variety of issues: the sense of family offered by crews, how they view their futures, raising their own children, and misconceptions about posses. Members commit petty crimes, but the crews nonetheless seem like social groups compared to the ``hard core'' gangs of such cities as Los Angeles. Often, however, they come across as caricatures: all talk and no action. Though Hinojosa's own naive views sometimes intrude, her book works best when she gets her subjects to drop their bravado and recount their individual experiences in an increasingly violent society. The resultant portraits powerfully demonstrate how loneliness, hopelessness and low self-esteem affect a growing number of young people. A compelling afterword brings the subjects' lives up to date. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)