Educational Media Reviews Online

Little Brother presents an intimate and insightful ongoing conversation with African American male youth in three different cities in the United States, Compton, NJ, Chicago and St. Petersberg, FL. The young men interviewed are surprisingly candid and forthcoming in their treatment of a wide variety of highly personal subjects, including love, their thoughts on girls, their relationships with their parents, their impressions of violence in their community, their hopes for the future and their greatest accomplishments thus far. Unfortunately, there are moments where interviewer-director-producer Nicole Franklin seems to guide the conversation a little too heavy-handedly: the phrasing of certain questions seems to not offer the possibility that any of these young men could be gay and her questions occasionally seem to be guiding them towards the correct response (one might say, leading the witness). There are other editorial decisions that leave much to be desired: the series does not read as a comprehensive whole because of changes in presentation style as well as the caption typeface. Moreover, the subtitles for each chapter do not especially reflect the content (a wiser choice may have been to specify the city or state of each chapter). At the same time, it is clear the filmmakers made their best of limited resources (Chapter 2, for example, was recorded exclusively on an iPhone4). Overall, the series is recommended because quality of the content and unique nature of the boys' responses make up for the technical shortcomings: the young men are each engaging and the series would serve as an excellent resource to those working with young adults and one would hope, in Michael Apted style, that the Little Brother series might revisit the boys every few years to see how they evolve into men.

Because the chapters are available for purchase separately, smaller to medium size collections may want to be selective about which chapters to purchase: Chapter 1 (Compton, NJ) seems the best produced throughout and also features some of the most in depth interviews (although the music track in this chapter is particularly awkward when paired with the content). Chapter 2 (Chicago, IL) opens with an introduction by rapper turned actor Common (I had initially assumed that he was a consultant to the project, Raymond A. Winbush, PhD, author of Warrior Method: A Parents' Guide to Rearing Healthy Black Boys, since his name is not revealed until the final credits, although my husband claims that I am supposed to recognize Common). The content of Chapter 2 is otherwise very similar to Chapter 1, although the boys tend to be clustered more in groups in very close proximity to each other, likely because of the limitations of the iPhone camera. Chapter 3 (St. Petersberg, FL) may have the most appeal to collections, as it includes some fascinating descriptions from the youth of their impressions of the Trayvon Martin shooting.