Lockdown Characters

Fourteen-year-old Reese Anderson is our narrator, and as the book begins, he's nearing the end of his stay in a juvenile jail where he's been incarcerated for almost two years. He's not just the bo...

Mr. Hooft is one of the residents at Evergreen, the eldercare facility where Reese works. He's the kind of racist who's always talking about "you people" this and "you people" that. At first, he's...

Reese's nine-year-old sister is predictably adorable. She'd probably even come across as cheesy if Lockdown weren't such a grim book. As it stands, though, she's a much-needed ray of sunshine in an...

Deepak is just twelve years old, and he's in jail because he won't obey his parents or go to school. "He didn't look like a regular kid," Reese tells us. "He had this round face and big glasses lik...

Mr. Cintron is in charge at Progress, and Reese seems to genuinely look up to him. "He was cool," Reese tells us; "He was the only one at Progress who I believed most of the time" (2.6). In general...

Our first impression of Mr. Pugh is that he's a stereotypical sadistic prison guard—"Shut up, worm!" (1.3) are pretty much the first words out of his mouth. Sure enough, he's really into displays...

We only meet Reese's mom once, briefly, when she visits Reese in jail. That visit is strictly business: She's trying to enlist Reese in her latest schemes to get cash. She's a manipulator and a dru...

King Kong is a new inmate at Progress, and Reese doesn't like him on sight. Eventually, they come to blows—once during a basketball game, and then again in the rec room. Reese understands that Ki...

Reese's older brother is the most mysterious of his family members, and that's probably because Reese doesn't seem to know him that well. "Me and Willis weren't all that tight, but he was still blo...

Other Progress InmatesReese's fellow inmates, with a few exceptions, are nearly indistinguishable. There's Toon (see: Deepak Trevedi), of course, who Reese looks after. And there's Play, who mostly...