
This summer I plan to meet a couple days a week with a handful of kids for SAT practice and a book study…I thought about doing The Hate U Give or All-American Boys (funny, you brought that up!). I have taught in the same urban district teaching high school Spanish and English for the past 18yrs. I absolutely LOVED this book, and I have brought it up to a few of my students. Be respectful of other people’s opinions the subject matter of this book will bring up strong opinions and feelings, and everyone is encouraged to share honestly, but any comments that are abusive toward other commenters will be removed. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Thomas helps us understand other complex issues by having the adult characters explain things to Starr, but I felt like the riots weren’t explored enough, and this is an issue that I think white America still needs help understanding. I wish there could have been more discussion of the rioting, and of the characters’ understanding of it.

I appreciated the opportunity to get to know people like DeVante and Khalil and hear the stories of how they ended up getting involved with gangs and selling drugs, which painted a much more complex, nuanced picture of how some young people end up doing these things. I appreciated the fact that we get to know characters who are so often represented by stereotypes.I think this is an incredibly important book that can be used as a springboard for talking about race relations, law enforcement, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
