Who is TJ

Fourteen-year-old TJ attends Mrs. Logan's seventh grade class with Stacey because he failed last year. He blames his brother, Claude, when he gets into trouble and talks Stacey out of his new wool coat. TJ grows from a talkative, irritating, and mischievous boy to a liar, cheat, and thief during the course of the book. Ultimately led astray and betrayed by his shiftless white friends, we find TJ doesn't deserve the harsh punishment life has handed him.