All American Boys
Books | Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Prejudice & Racism
4.4
(1.4K)
Jason Reynolds
Brendan Kiely
A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature. In this New York Times bestselling novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement? There were witnesses: Quinn Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team—half of whom are Rashad’s best friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before. Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred reviewed tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken directly from today’s headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.
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More Details:
Author
Jason Reynolds
Pages
320
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Published Date
2015-09-29
ISBN
1481463357 9781481463355
Ratings
Google: 4
Community ReviewsSee all
"4.5*"
S K
Siya K.
"What a powerful story. This was a story that I can put on my list as one that I wish that I could read for the first time again. Before I was done with it I was telling people about this amazing story.
This story has the tough conversations when it comes to police brutality. From the point of view from a victim and one who is close to the cop involved.
I can’t recommend this story enough. I could continue to write about all the things that I found so powerful in this story, but I don’t want to give away too much of the plot. All I can say is, it is a must read. "