I WONDER WHY? I KNOW WHY. NEVERMINED By Jamael McCauley with Jerry Ingram Deshawn is a young African American male who is striving to overcome the harsh realities of growing up in a drug and gang infested neighborhood in St. Louis, Mo. As a child he quickly discovers that life is not always as it appears. He witnesses the pain of death at a very young age as his best friend's mother commits suicide. Dealing with the death was not an easy thing for him. His teacher Ms. Rice notices a change in his demeanor immediately following the death and he is sent to the principal's office. The principal suggests that he work in the school library where he has interesting conversations with the librarian. Deshawn's father is in jail for an unknown crime and his mother constantly gets involved in abusive relationships with men. He often witnesses these beatings and is ashamed that he can't protect his mother. Before his grandmother passed she always taught him to pray when his mother is getting beat. Therefore, he develops a relationship with God at an early age. Academically Deshawn always excelled in school and his teachers took notice. In junior high his mother enrolled him in the desegregation program. He was bussed from the inner-city to the suburbs to attend school. It was not an easy adjustment as he dealt with racism and feeling unequal to the mostly white population in the school. It was there that his teacher Ms. Rice signed him up for a school spelling bee that he went on to win. Unfortunately, by the time Deshawn reached high school he had began dealing drugs and was involved with a violent street gang.