Hardcover | $17.99
Published by Crown Books for Young Readers Oct 17, 2017 | 224 Pages
Published by Crown Books for Young Readers Oct 17, 2017 | 224 Pages
| Young Adult
| ISBN 9781101939499
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.
To make things clear, before I go off on my deeper issues,
Dear Martin is one of the greatest books that I have ever read. It deserves the
highest praise and I recommend people of every age, race, gender, and orientation
to read it. I shed many tears in grief and anger and I felt a coldness in my
bones at the reality of it all. This was not simply a book to be read, this is
a book to FEEL and UNDERSTAND the situations we are still dealing with so many
years later. I want to thank Nic Stone for this intense and brutally honest
experience.
Now this is my 5th review revision. I finished
Dear Martin about two weeks ago but I couldn’t form a review I felt was worthy
enough. It is now August 12 and Charlottesville happened. Dear Martin has now
taken on a new life for me.
Dear Martin features young high school characters dealing
with the fall out of police brutality and racial profiling. There are several
classroom debates that take place with majority of classmates being white and
arguing about the existence of racism and slavery in this day and age. There is
a party where a KKK robe is worn as a “statement” piece and then the N word is
uttered rather comfortably. Aftermath is not pretty. Our main character,
Justyce, is now torn between his two worlds. The world he grew up in, where
stereotypes and violence runs freely, or the life he has made for himself. A
life where he has been accepted to Yale and has fallen for someone that his
mother won’t approve of. A life where he thought he wouldn’t become a victim.
Just yesterday, white supremacists took to the streets with
no shame and in the end people were hurt and lives were lost fighting against
everything they represent. We have a “President” who will not condemn their
actions because, well, I think we all know why.
In Dear Martin, a life is taken simply out of fear. Their
future didn’t matter, their innocence wasn’t a factor. All that mattered was
their color and how that can be seen as a weapon.
Have things changed? In some ways, sure. In the full view of
things, the situation was just hidden until given the green light once more.
PRE-ORDER DEAR MARTIN
About the Author
Nic Stone is a native of
Atlanta and a Spelman College graduate. After working extensively in
teen mentoring and living in Israel for a few years, she returned to the
United States to write full-time. Dear Martin, her first novel,
is loosely based on a series of true events involving the shooting
deaths of unarmed African American teenagers. Shaken by the various
responses to these incidents—and to the pro-justice movement that sprang
up as a result—Stone began the project in an attempt to examine current
affairs through the lens of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings. You can find her fangirling over her husband and sons on Twitter and Instagram at @getnicced or on her website nicstone.info.
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