How does Walter Dean Myers use imagery in Somewhere in the Darkness?

Imagery:

"Mama Jean would tell him to do things, but the way she would tell him, putting her hand on his arm or rubbing his shoulder, it was almost as if she were asking him."

"There were houses that looked like the old houses he had seen in picture books. In the books the houses were supposed to be interesting, or pretty to look at. But these houses had people living in them, men who stood on the front porches with their hands in their pockets."