47 pages 1 hour read

Jacqueline Woodson

After Tupac and D Foster

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2008

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue Summary

Content Warning: This section contains discussions of race, racism, racial identity, anti-gay bias, gun violence and fatalities, wrongful conviction/imprisonment, and the foster system. 



The narrator, writing as an adult, is looking back on her past and explains the context of her friendship with D Foster as a teenager, which took place in the couple of years between the first time Tupac Shakur was shot and when he died from another shooting. After he recovered from the first shooting, he went to prison and began speaking out against the “thug life” he’d once embraced and embodied. The narrator reflects that the timeline of the last couple years of Tupac’s life was intertwined with her own coming-of-age and her friendship with D Foster. As an adult now telling the story, she feels it is important to remember that time with the wisdom and perspective she now has as an adult.

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary

Switching now to the story of her teenage years, the narrator begins by telling about a time when she, Neeka, and D are watching music videos and eating pizza at the narrator’s house.