The story is about a community of Black cowboys living in Philadelphia. The main plot of “Concrete Cowboy” is the city wanting to take away the cowboys' land and horses. Cole must fight alongside his father and other cowboys to keep their land and continue their tradition.

At the beginning of the book Cole is a troublemaker to such a point that his mom thinks he is better off without her because she educated him wrong. He is stubborn and is angry at his mom for abandoning him and at his dad for not being there for him for most of his life. He also has trouble believing that cowboys can be Black and doesn’t like the idea of riding on a horse. Whereas at the end of the book he is more open and now follows the cowboy way and stopped causing so much trouble. He gets to know his father and they get along and he appreciates horses and is no longer scared of them. He goes from wondering if Black people can be cowboys to being one himself.

My favourite part of the book was when Cole went to rescue his horse with his cousin and his friend.This is because I liked how he and the horse got along so well even though they didn’t know each other for that long. I liked the bond a lot, especially that at the beginning Cole was a bit skeptical about getting on something living three times his size.

I didn’t know before that a group of cowboys lived in Philadelphia until I read this book. I think this is because it isn’t spoken about much, on the TV cowboys are usually white and not Black because it is not as common and because until recently it was white people who controlled the education system and other everyday activities. So to them it would be more interesting to tell their history and not Black people’s history even though originally cowboys were Black slaves who helped with the cows. White people only took that title because it became popular.

If I could ask the author a question I would ask him how he got the idea to write a book about Black cowboys and how he came across the information about them even existing. Maybe he has already met some?

If I could change one thing about this book it would be that there are more details about why Cole’s mom left him with his father, her reasons were unclear to me. I think that the author should have put more context before the scene where his mom drives him away. It would have been more interesting for me. 

I think the author wants readers to realize that to make a solid conclusion you need to have heard the two sides of the stories, because everyone doesn’t have the same point of view at all like how the city came to take away the cowboy’s horses after the big storm so obviously the barn would be in bad shape. Except people watching the news just saw the damaged barn and came to the conclusion that the cowboys were unhygienic and didn’t look after their horses well.

I give this book a 3 star rating because it was very educational and the story was interesting but I found the plot a bit long and the end was not very enlightening. I also found the part when his mom drops him off at his dad’s house a bit random.