Tag Archives: police shooting

Review: Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Dear Martin by Nic StoneDear Martin
Nic Stone
Crown Books for Young Readers
Published on October 17, 2017

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About Dear Martin

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it’s Justyce who is under attack.

My Review

Okay, wow. I liked this book so much. I wondered a little bit at the beginning if it would be a lot like THE HATE U GIVE, which I also liked and which had some similar elements. (Kid from a lower income neighborhood going to a private school who has experiences with police brutality, racism and gang violence, even an interracial relationship and how difficult that is for a family member.) And all those elements definitely play a role in this story, but it still felt like a completely different book in the way the story was told.

I loved that Jus writes letters to Dr. King. What a cool way to connect the Civil Rights movement to a present-day story and situation. I also felt like the story captured some of the complexity of a community facing issues like this. While this is Justyce’s story, we also see so many of the other characters respond to what’s happening in striking ways—sometimes because they’re so emotional and other times because they simply aren’t.

I think THE HATE U GIVE is an incredibly powerful story, and I don’t want to take anything away from it or from the amazing author, Angie Thomas, by saying this, but actually, I liked DEAR MARTIN better, if I had to rank them. Amazing story. This one will stay with me for a long time.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Cultural Elements
Justyce and his best friend Manny are black and go to a mostly white school. Justyce’s close friend and debate partner is Jewish. Jus writes letters to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently. It was sporadic enough that I’d sometimes forget it was in the story. Often used in anger. Some racial epithets also used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Jus makes vague mention of experiences with his past girlfriend. His best friend reminds him about an incident in which he caught a girlfriend cheating on him (he references Jus finding her in a compromising position).

Spiritual Content
During a funeral, Jus thinks about his friend’s beliefs and how they contrast what the preacher is saying about living on in Heaven. His friend didn’t believe in God.

Violent Content
Brief descriptions of violence and racial epithets. A couple scenes show or reference one kid punching another. Usually those moments are choppy and out of focus. Another scene shows a man shooting two kids. News stories and conversations reference other shootings.

Drug Content
Jus drinks alcohol twice.

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Review: Moonrise by Sarah Crossan

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Moonrise
Sarah Crossan
Bloomsbury Children’s
Published on May 8, 2018

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About Moonrise
‘They think I hurt someone.
But I didn’t. You hear?
Coz people are gonna be telling you
all kinds of lies.
I need you to know the truth.’

As Joe’s older brother nears his execution date, Joe journeys to visit him before the end. He struggles to understand what happened from the night Ed’s accused of murder through the twists and turns in the justice system. Now, barely able to provide for himself, Joe tries his best to support his brother and hold onto the hope that his brother will have justice before he dies.

My Review
Moonrise shines a light on some cracks in the criminal justice system. I feel like cracks isn’t the right word. Holes? Canyons? I’m not sure. Nevertheless, reading a story about someone who seems to have been wrongfully convicted can’t be easy.

Joe’s whole life is a struggle, but his brother Ed was one of the brightest spots in it as he grew up, fatherless, and with a drug-addicted mother. That changes when Ed goes to prison for murder, even though there isn’t much evidence to support the conviction. Now he tries to be a support to his brother in what may be his final days, even though he has no idea what to say or how to say it. Even though he can barely afford to survive on his own in the small Texas town where Ed’s imprisoned.

The story has a lot of grim moments, but it’s not without hope. Joe befriends a young woman who teaches him about forgiveness and love. He meets a Chaplin who challenges him to be strong. His sister and aunt find ways to love one another despite the difficult circumstances they find themselves in.

Did I like the story? For some reason, I find it tough to answer that. It’s an uncomfortable read in some ways. I found I couldn’t read it without examining my own thoughts on issues like the death penalty and police procedures surrounding suspects and pressure to elicit a confession. I think this was the author’s point, so in that way, the story must be a success. Was it a comfortable read? No. Not at all. But there are a lot of books worth reading that aren’t comfortable. I have to call this one of them.

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used moderately frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Joe and his brother meet with a Chaplin who brings them comfort.

Violent Content
Joe’s brother has been accused and convicted of shooting a police officer. No descriptions of the officer’s death.

Drug Content
Joe and a girl smoke pot together in one scene. In another, they drink alcohol.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

 

Review: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas
Balzer + Bray
Published on February 28, 2017

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About The Hate U Give

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

My Review
If you’re part of the YA community at all, chances are you’ve heard about or already read this book. It’s been on my list to read since before it came out, and I’ve finally managed to get a copy. Once I had THE HATE U GIVE in hand, it didn’t take me long to read it.

One powerful part of the story is the way it puts faces and names on an issue too often in the headlines. We see not only Starr, a young high school student with her whole life ahead of her, but also her loving family, and the community around her. And we see these elements not only for her but for Khalil, the boy killed by police, as well. We learn about his mistakes, but we also learn that those things aren’t the whole of who he is. We learn about why he made some of those choices, and it doesn’t make them less wrong, but it does make the truth more complicated.

One of the issues that comes up with regard to this book is how much profanity is included in the story. In a Twitter post, Angie Thomas talked about this issue, and said she hoped people would see the story and be moved by the importance of it rather than getting hung up on the language.

And while I absolutely appreciate what she’s saying—because the book does talk about a critical issue in an incredibly powerful way—I also understand that including so much strong language will prevent some people from reading the book and will give ground for some schools to opt not to carry it in their libraries. It may keep the story out of some of the hands of people who most need to read it. And I find that frustrating and sad.

I loved this story. It moved me. It made me connect with characters deeply. It made me realize that while I’ve been outraged and upset about police brutality, it’s been on an issue level—I’ve objected to ideas like racism and profiling and injustice. THE HATE U GIVE made me think about aspects I hadn’t faced or had only vaguely considered, made me think about the communities affected by police brutality and the friends and family members left behind. It made me see the victims as not simply blurbs in headlines, but as complex people. It showed the ripple effects of police brutality through a whole community.

Reading THE HATE U GIVE made me think about another story I’ve read called PIECING ME TOGETHER by Renee Watson. It also made me wonder what the novel would have looked like if it had been from Starr’s friend Kenya’s perspective. Her father is a local gang leader who abuses her mother. I don’t mean this as a criticism of the story at all. Telling it from Starr’s point-of-view really showed the tug-of-war in her life between the black community where she lived and the white community where she went to school, which was a powerful element. But I hope that someone tells Kenya’s story, too.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Starr and her family are black. Starr dates a white boy, but hasn’t told her dad yet. Her best friends at school are white and Asian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to making out, kissing between a boy and girl. Starr’s boyfriend asked her to have sex with him, but she refused, and was angry at him for even bringing it up. Later, she initiates some sexual contact (hand under clothes) but stops.

Spiritual Content
Starr’s family prays together on multiple occasions.

Violent Content
Starr hears gunshots at a party she’s attending and later learns someone was killed there. She witnesses police shoot her unarmed friend after pulling him over. Gang members threaten and attack a local business man and a young gang member. Starr doesn’t see the attacks, but does see the resulting injuries. Starr’s half-brother, Seven, worries about his mom, who continually lets a man live with her even though he beats her.

Protests turn violent. Protesters damage police cars, businesses, etc. Starr and her friends are upset and believe that only makes the conflict worse.

Drug Content
Teen drinking at the party Starr attends at the beginning of the book. She smells pot smoke there, too.

Review: They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery

Book Review and Content, Nonfiction, , , , , , , ,

They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement
Wesley Lowery
Little, Brown & Co.
Published November 15, 2016

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About They Can’t Kill Us All
Conducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one year reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today.

In an effort to grasp the magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown’s death and understand the scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to Brown’s family and the families of other victims other victims’ families as well as local activists. By posing the question, “What does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?” Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs.

Studded with moments of joy, and tragedy, They Can’t Kill Us All offers a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also about the black community’s long history on the receiving end of perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination. They Can’t Kill Us All grapples with a persistent if also largely unexamined aspect of the otherwise transformative presidency of Barack Obama: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to those Americans most in need of both.

They Can’t Kill Us All is a galvanizing book that offers more than just behind-the-scenes coverage of the story of citizen resistance to police brutality. It will also explain where the movement came from, where it is headed and where it still has to go.

My Review
I decided to read this book after seeing the author interviewed on a late night TV show and listening to him talk briefly about the statistics of deaths in which an on-duty police officer kills someone. He spoke eloquently about how difficult it was to gather information, the lack of oversight from the government and the barriers to real accountability in these kinds of cases.

As a white, small-town woman, I often feel undereducated about racial issues in America. As a teenager, I witnessed one instance of pretty horrific anti-Semitism which involved neo-Nazi slurs and a kid exposing himself to me and my friend. But do I really understand racism in America as it exists today? No, not at all, I don’t think. So I wanted some hardcore data, and the description of this book intrigued me, so I read it.

It’s really well-written. Each story moved me. And mostly, that’s what this book is. A long list of the stories of those whose lives ended in a police shooting and those who became voices raised for justice and change as a result of those deaths.

I liked that the author took such care to try to be unbiased in his approach to each subject. He doesn’t gloss over some of the grittier details of the people he profiles. He also gives a lot of context for what’s happened in many police forces which has created distance between officers and those they’re charged with protecting and serving. I hadn’t thought about many of the things he addresses, and felt like he tries at all times to be fair, even to the point of criticizing his own past reporting and pointing out errors he made in judgment or execution of a story.

Overall, the book made me want to know more. It did have some statistics and hard data, but didn’t really focus on those things. In some ways, They Can’t Kill Us All left me with more questions than I had to begin with. I want to know more about the data collected on police shootings—one of the most shocking statistics the book mentions is that one in three of those killed in police shootings are mentally ill. This seems like a staggering number and made me wonder if there’s not something we can do differently to handle these situations.

I recommend this book to anyone who’s interested in gaining a better sense of context for the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests in cities like Baltimore, Cleveland and Ferguson. I’m on the lookout for a book that provides additional context and more specific information on what police departments are doing to address some of these issues as well as changes made as a result of organizations mentioned in They Can’t Kill Us All since the book was written.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Explores racial issues in modern America and tells the stories of several young black Americans killed by police gunfire as well as the tales of many activists who began organizations to promote awareness and change during and in the aftermath of the Ferguson protests. Some organizers are members of the LGBT community.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used briefly.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief story about a woman who met her wife as a result of her activism following the events in Ferguson.

Spiritual Content
The book describes a devout Christian woman whose faith motivates her to leadership in the movement.

Violent Content
The author observes police brutality toward peaceful protestors in Ferguson as they use force and tear gas to disperse crowds. He describes his own arrest at one point, and the arrest of other protestors. The author also describes several shooting deaths.

Drug Content
Some brief reference to individuals who had drug charges on their records. No description of drug use.

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