Today was the primary election for Michigan, and I couldn’t help but feel that it was a good day for a Read to Resist post, which I’m going to try to do the first week of every month. These posts will mostly just focus on diverse stories from own voices writers, which is an act of resistance in and of itself. Plus, we should be supporting these stories anyway.
Black Lives Matter is something that has taken young adult literature by storm. Since the movie adaptation of The Hate U Give is coming out this fall, these books are excellent to read to prepare. Plus, they’re just wonderfully written books anyway–and if they’re doing their job, they should make you angry about our current political climate.
1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Starr witnesses the death of one of her childhood friends at the hands of a police officer just for the simple act of reaching for a hairbrush. Now, she must decide if she wants to use her own voice to make a difference or if she wants to stay silent. Thomas’s debut novel just won the Walden Award from the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents, in addition to getting a lot of other recognition. While she isn’t the first to write on this topic, her book is unflinchingly honest and definitely a must-read.
2. Dear Martin by Nic Stone
Justyce is bound for an Ivy league school, thanks to his opportunity to attend a prestigious high school and his excellent grades. But that doesn’t mean that he still can’t be the victim of racial profiling. Told in letters to Martin Luther King, Stone effectively portrays Justyce’s frustration with the system despite his successes at school. He believes he’s a good teen–but he’s still the victim of a broken system. Stone presents a window and a mirror for any teen that picks up this book.
3. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds
Told in dual perspectives between Rashad and Quinn, Reynolds (with the help of Brendan Kiely) is able to show both sides of the movement. Rashad has been wrongly accused of theft which causes him to be badly beaten by a police officer. Quinn personally knows the police officer who did the beating–and he doesn’t know how to feel or what to do. Both characters take drastically different journeys, but both journeys are important when it comes to making any sort of change.
4. How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon
Tariq Johnson dies from two gunshot wounds, but none of the accounts of the witnesses match up. The shooter, Jack Franklin, is white. The tragedy throws the entire community into an uproar, with everyone taking sides. Magoon uses multiple narrators in order to present each side of the narrative, giving the reader a non-biased view of the situation. The fact that many of the narratives don’t match up speaks to reality, as does the way that the media paints those involved in the tragedy.
5. March by John Lewis
Slightly different than the other books here, March is a graphic novel that outlines John Lewis’s role in the Civil Rights Movement. Not only are all three volumes incredibly informative, the narrative itself is really engaging. Supported by fantastic images, March should make its way onto everyone’s bookselves.