Ms. DelPo's Choice:
"All American Boys,"
by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely....
I love this book because it is actually two windows books in one! Reading this book is a chance to think about race in America -- and the fact that people who are a different race from you might experience the world in an entirely different way.
Two teenage boys, one black (Rashad) and one white (Quinn), are inextricably linked when Quinn witnesses Rashad being savagely beaten with little or no provocation by a policeman who has served as Quinn’s de facto big brother since his father was killed in Afghanistan—and whose younger brother is one of Quinn’s best friends. Can Quinn simply walk away from this apparent atrocity and pretend he hasn’t seen what he has seen? And what of Rashad? Hospitalized with internal bleeding, all he wants is to be left alone so he can focus on his art. The challenge for both boys becomes more intense when the case becomes a cause célèbre dividing first their school and then the entire community.
