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The Hate U Give
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The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; Five Stars
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Beautiful review and awareness.For those of us who are more familiar with prejudice against brown and black people, will this book add something more?
Hmm, that’s a tough question Cynda. I think most of us like to think we have pretty strong awareness. Many people are loving the experience of this book. When I was preparing to write my review and halfway through, I struggled to remember what the few criticisms were of the people who came in under the rave (usually that’s my job). I think they were largely about whether or not it’s YA, and what that goes to the quality of writing. I think two things are interesting regarding our youth and this book. The first is that this was one of the five book choices at my kids high school for required summer reading, and kids are reading it. The second is the unheard of element, that my book group is inviting five of our kids to discuss it with us this Friday night, and this is the first time that these wise daughters are actually coming to talk about the book from their perspective. This is never happened before for our group, and I’m really excited that this book is something that youth would want to talk about. It’s getting some pretty high Raves. But you can decide for yourself whether it’s for you. Again, interesting question.
Amy wrote: "Hmm, that’s a tough question Cynda. I think most of us like to think we have pretty strong awareness. Many people are loving the experience of this book. When I was preparing to write my review and..."Sure. Thank you for your thoughtful answer. If I run across this book at the bookstore or at the library, I will definitely give it a good first scan. Thanks again.
That’s pretty cool Amy - the book club discussion. Let us know how it goes
Nice review! I’m glad you liked it. I thought there was a lot in this book, too, and I’m curious to hear how the discussion goes. I’m betting the kids will have a surprising perspective.
Great review Amy and I think it’s awesome that your book club is inviting the teenagers. I do think this should be required reading for teenagers as it does cover a gambit of issues.
JoLene wrote: "Great review Amy and I think it’s awesome that your book club is inviting the teenagers. I do think this should be required reading for teenagers as it does cover a gambit of issues."completely agree. This book is so much more important than some of the other books I read in high school. I'd love to see it as required reading.
Great review Amy, we definitely saw pretty eye to eye as far as the review of the book goes.I'm glad you had 5 stars, like I did. I think one thing that got a lot of criticism that you referenced was the believe-ability of Chris, and the book in general. In reference to the characters, I kind of saw it as a "this book is the example, not necessarily what is 100% true. We want to hope and believe that others can understand their white privilege, or at least take time and effort to be educated on subjects discussed in the book.
Just an update on last nights book group discussion with the teens. It went apparently extremely well, but shoot - I missed it entirely! There has been a huge storm in the Northeast, and while I did show to the group meeting, (there were 5 women and three teens who braved the winds to come, despite traffic lights being out, and no power in some homes) and everyone really liked the book. The girls were 12th grade, 9th grade, and 7th. Lovely! But my kids kept calling, (hubby was out too) and while I was just four minutes away, it seems all three of these boys were frightened. By the time it came to discuss the book, my 15 year old was calling every 2 minutes. The wind made some noise. All three of them were relieved when I came home. It was the right call, but damn, I have little to report. Everyone said this morning that the teens loved being included and that it was a really neat discussion. They want to come again.In other somewhat unrelated news, I have asked my 15 year old to write a review of Beartown, (he finished it before we left for Mexico) and yesterday he sent me two, each an attempt to get the Xbox back, after I had set a limit on reactive behavior. The first was hiliarious! It was clearly stolen word for word from the internet, (probably one of you wrote it....). The sophistication was amazing. I brought him over and asked him a few questions, like what does this word mean? (guise, heinous, ominous, turmoil.). I then told him that I was dubious that he actually wrote the thing. What does dubious mean kid? Wait - does that mean skeptical? Hooray, college is back on the table. The second review attempt, had no big words, but there was no question it wasn't his. Really, kid? Like ripples on a pond, the effect spread through? like something something in the forest, Beartown is finally found? There are big block letters on the bottom of this thing saying, "I actually wrote this!" He later said he changed the words around so it was his. Still swears he wrote it - impossible! He has been on the Xbox all day, and he swears there is a new review written from scratch in my email box. We will see. If its worth anything, I will post it. That is all of my news from the teen world today.
So sorry that you didn’t get to participate, but you made the right call.
Amy wrote: "Just an update on last nights book group discussion with the teens. It went apparently extremely well, but shoot - I missed it entirely! There has been a huge storm in the Northeast, and while I di..."Amy, I love both stories, the one about the book club, with boys worrying about safety and your son's book review.
He finally sent me an acceptable review. I will publish it tonight.
Looking forward to it!
Well this time I came in at the top of the rave. I loved it and I’m really glad I read it. I think this book is compelling, moving, and hits all the right notes. I got wrapped up in it. It didin’t matter to me whether it was YA or not, or who the intended audience was. It was the voice of a sixteen year old, but when its well done, books meant for young people appeal to me too. Of course there is more to say about the theme and “pull” of the book, but I wanted to first say that I loved the relationships. So many of them. Khalil with Starr, Starr and Chris, Starr and Maya, Starr and Kenya (sp?) and Lyric with Seven. Maverick and the mom, the mom and Starr. Uncle Carlos, Devante, Devante and Chris. The relationships were at the heart of this to me. Shopkeepers and Neighborhood, even the rich white school neighborhood. There were relationships here that were beautiful and stood out to me. People took care of one another, even when one is strung out. Or in danger, or has burned you once or twice, There was various kinds of loyalty all around, including with which gangs, and how that shifting allegiances and loyalties worked. The adults took care of the children and each other. And the reverse was true as well.
I loved Chris! And yet I found it completely impossible that he would have the balls and the guts and the strength of character to want to truly know Starr and get to participate in her experience and put himself in danger to do it. While that felt like an amazing stretch for me, it was one of those things you just have to ride with in a book like this. A suspension of disbelief. Speaking of suspension of disbelief, of course when the characters you have come to care about most continue to remain largely unscathed – well you have to roll with that too, all the while being grateful for that privilege the author grants.
But as to the content and the messaging, no suspension of disbelief there. Angie Thomas did a great job depicting a life and experience that most of us cannot imagine. I rarely read two books at once, ever.. But while being in the experience in Garden Heights, I am also in the experience of early Communist China, and each has a different painful feel – although there are some incredibly tender moments of love that make each livable. I imagine that’s true in the non-fiction version too. But onto White Privilege/White Guilt, which we are meant to feel and experience. We are meant to know that Black Lives Matter. Even if you thought you knew it before. You are meant to feel it intimately, and are meant to care. And this book makes you do both.
But onto white privilege, my current association, is that forgetting my usual home neighborhood of privilege, I am reading this book from a fancy shmancy resort in Puerto Vaillarta Mexico, and on the plane home, and its as far from home as can be. On our last day, when I had been 20% through it, I was describing this book to my oldest, (newly 15) and why I picked it out for him for later this semester, for the challenge of reading a book written by something other than a Dead White Man. My child is not just close to illiterate, he is underexposed, and of course those go together. Having had the privilege of growing up with immense resources and a great sense of safety and self-empowerment, this particular child has managed not to know plenty about this world. Even basic things. One of the reasons I want him to read, is to be exposed to things that I think other children might pick up on more easily and readily. An interest in sports has kept him singularly focused, and its been my life work to make the world a larger place for him, and have him be a more interesting person in it. I find as he and I are walking through this beautiful resort, (to be honest, probably I haven’t seen an African American in about a week) that I am explaining to him for the first time about police brutality, and about the experiences and circumstances many minorities face in America. The juxtaposition of his innocence, and the beauty of this lavish resort and the privilege to be telling him about simply what this book is about, is a privilege that is a great distance from the non-fiction experience of so many others. Like a small child of innocence, he asks the question: “But why? Why would police act differently and therefore place Black people in more danger? What do you mean the police shot him? Why would he do that?” And in my white privilege, I have the thought that I am at least a little bit, more than a little bit grateful that his innocence and huge heart is as pure as it is, I remember when he was a little boy, we spoke about Martin Luther King, and his famous “I Had a Dream” speech. And my six or seven year old (at the time) says to me innocently. “But I play in the playground with Kaleb all the time, or sometimes instead we play basketball.” Even then he couldn’t contemplate racism, or why anyone would care that a family of two moms live across the street. Modern Family becomes the new normal, the way we grew up with Different Strokes, or the Facts of Life, or All in the Family. Our children (in some neighborhoods) are growing up with all kinds of families and cultures and its normal to them. Only now in high school, is he beginning to consider what it means that Kaleb is black, that some kids are transgender or gay, and that racism and antisemitism isn’t history, it happens here too, and that what we do about it matters. Where we live, it is safe to be Jewish. And while there were swastikas, and other graffiti at the Middle School on the other side of town, and things come up, he has lived a pretty safe and privileged life. He is proud of being Jewish, but doesn’t know that the history of how unsafe it can be to be marginalized. When he goes to Israel next summer, it’s bound to be a profound experience on multiple levels, but I think the experience of Yad Vashem (and other sites) will be life changing for him. I am grateful that he has grown up in safety, but I don’t want that safety to cut him off from the actual experiences of many people today. I think we need to be touched by difficult truths. From loss, to disability, to cultural disadvantages, to racism, to danger. To political divides and to the arguments on both sides. How many of us watching the Town Hall meeting with the recent survivor families of Florida speaking to Mark Rubio, how many of us asked ourselves if the female NRA representative was a mother? And of course being a parent, it changes your experience of everything. This book showed beauty in a situation that is not beautiful. It exposes an ugly truth that we need to confront. And it offers a message that hopefully holds us through. Starr’s mother says to Starr, “Sometimes things ain’t right, they go very wrong, but you have to keep doing right.” I pray that the message we are emulating for our own children and for everyone everywhere. That in the face of wrong, we try always to do what is right. That we speak out, we help, we are impacted, and we care to know and feel. Everyone’s children is our children. And the world is ours to try to repair and build, and to teach our future generations to do the same. To make things better and to take care of one another. To do as right as we can. Great Book – five stars for me!