Authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely put the issues of police bias, violence against Blacks, and white privilege front and center in this novel that alternates between the voices of high school students Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins. African American Rashad is brutalized by a white police officer who makes a snap judgment of a scene and assumes Rashad was harassing a white woman and stealing from a neighborhood store where he’d gone to buy potato chips. Quinn, who is white, shows up as handcuffed Rashad is being pummeled by the cop on the sidewalk outside. The officer is his best friend’s older brother, Paul, a man who has been like a father to Quinn since his own dad died in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the beating, hospitalized Rashad deals with pain and fear as his family deals with fear and anger and tension, especially between Rashad’s older brother, Spoony, and their ex-cop dad. As the story goes viral, Quinn is feeling pressure to support Paul but can’t stop thinking what Paul did to Rashad is wrong. He begins to realize that saying nothing—he slipped away from the scene before he was noticed—is also wrong. Silence, he realizes, is part of the privilege of being white, and it’s part of the problem of racism. Something too few are willing to acknowledge, including school administrators and some teachers in the aftermath. Rashad and Quinn and their classmates are singular, vivid characters—kids you feel you might meet in the halls of just about any school—in a novel that is both nuanced and bold as it explores the harsh realities and emotional complexities surrounding race in America. (Age 13 and older)
© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2016
Eleven-year-old Genie and his older brother, Ernie, are visiting their Virginia grandparents. It’s Genie’s first time meeting his grandfather, and he’s fascinated to discover the older man is blind. In a story full of small dramatic arcs and ongoing mysteries—of the door the boys aren’t supposed to open but that Genie does, of a room full of swallows, of the yellow house in the woods, of the unexplained tension between his father and grandfather, of the effect of the girl down the hill on his brother—Genie, a quiet, curious observer, deepens his understanding of himself, his grandfather, and the joy and pain and love that is family. Genie, so keen in his wondering; his grandfather, full of poignant regret, fierce pride, and barely acknowledged fear; his grandmother, all bustling efficiency and loving control; and Ernie’s alternating confidence and caution are exquisite characterizations gracing a novel both funny and tender (poop patrol in the yard; their grandfather teaching Ernie to shoot; Ernie not wanting to fire a gun). It also beautifully captures the way summer days can feel shapeless, while forming themselves into a season of growth and discovery. (Ages 8–12)
© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2017
This necessary book for our time is labeled a “remix” of Kendi’s 2016 National Book Award winner published for adults, Stamped from the Beginning. It’s an accurate description: Reynolds’ adaptation is intimate and conversational. After documenting the origins of racist ideas, he introduces three categories of people based on their beliefs: racist, assimilationist, and anti-racist. This is followed by a chronological exploration of the racial politics of United States, from the Puritans through the Obama era. Along the way are examples of historical people, from Cotton Mather to W.E.B. DuBois to Angela Davis, showing how each exemplified the definitions of racist, assimilationist, and anti-racist. The narrative stops just before 2016, but readers have been given the foundation to begin to evaluate our current era on their own.
Although Stamped is a real departure from Reynolds’ fiction and poetry, it still bears his trademark style. An Afterword written directly to teens is especially moving and powerful. (Ages 12 and older)
© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2020
Long Way Down - Book Trailer
Half Black, half Puerto Rican, Miles Morales is comfortable in his own skin, even if some people aren’t always comfortable with his skin. But the same can’t be said for how Miles feels about other aspects of his identity. He’s a scholarship student from a poor Brooklyn neighborhood attending an elite prep school and he wants to do well for himself, his family, and community, but it’s a lot of pressure. And then there’s the fact that he’s Spider-Man. Only his best friend, Ganke, knows this truth. It was on a visit to his late Uncle Aaron, an ex-con his parents had forbidden him to see, that Miles was bitten by the spider that transformed him. Aaron has been on Miles’s mind a lot lately. For all that he has superpowers, Miles wonders if he has the same bad blood that made his uncle turn to crime. And being a superhero doesn’t mean Miles can solve the challenges in his neighborhood, let alone the world; he can’t even challenge a racist teacher without getting suspended. There is a superhero storyline here as Miles comes to understand and confronts a threat to the world—full of the action and moments of humor expected in the genre—but it’s deftly wrapped inside a vivid work of relatable, contemporary realistic fiction. (Age 11 and older)
© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2018
Long Way Down - Jason Reynolds
Fifteen-year-old Will, immobilized with grief when his older brother Shawn is shot and killed, slowly comes to mull The Rules in his head. There are three: don't cry, don't snitch, and "if someone you love / gets killed, / find the person / who killed / them and / kill them." So Will locates Shawn's gun, leaves his family's eighth-floor apartment, and--well, here is where this intense verse novel becomes a gripping drama, as on each floor of the descending elevator Will is joined by yet another victim or perpetrator in the chain of violence that took his brother's life. Shawn's best friend Buck gets into the elevator on seven; Dani, Will's friend from childhood, gets in on six; Will and Shawn's uncle Mark gets in on five, in a cloud of cigarette smoke. And so it goes, each stop of the elevator adding to the chorus of ghosts (including Will and Shawn's father), each one with his or her perspective on The Rules. The poetry is stark, fluently using line breaks and page-turns for dramatic effect; the last of these reveals the best closing line of a novel this season. Read alone (though best aloud), the novel is a high-stakes moral thriller; it's also a perfect if daring choice for readers' theater.
Roger Sutton Copyright 2017 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.
The Boy in The Black Suit -
Jason Reynolds
His mother recently dead from breast cancer, 17-year-old Matt feels his life is backwards and that he has become invisible at school. Then, ironically, he secures a work-study job at the local funeral home, owned by Mr. Ray, a respected fixture in their Bed-Stuy neighborhood, and discovers, to his surprise, that he enjoys attending funerals. "Somehow," he thinks, "it made me feel better knowing my pain isn't only mine." It is at a funeral that he meets a beautiful girl with the improbable name of Lovey and feels an instant attraction. The two become friends and gradually their friendship, rooted in trust, becomes something deeper that may redeem both of them from their losses and loneliness. Though it gets off to a slightly slow start, Reynolds' second novel quickly becomes a superb, character-driven story. His protagonist Matt is a wonderfully sympathetic, multidimensional character whose voice is a perfect match for the material and whose relationships with Lovey and Mr. Ray, also a fascinating character are beautifully realized. This quiet story is clearly a winner. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
