Atheneum
October 2015
On Sale: September 29, 2015
Featuring: Quinn Collins; Rashad; Paul Galluzzo
320 pages ISBN: 1481463330 EAN: 9781481463331 Kindle: B00YNIIR3C Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
In an unforgettable new novel from award-winning authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, two teensβone black, one whiteβgrapple 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. Thatβs 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 Rashadβs pleadings that heβs stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashadβs resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashadβs 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?
>But there were witnesses: Quinn Collinsβa varsity basketball player and Rashadβs classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistanβand 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 teamβhalf of whom are Rashadβs best friendsβstart 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 tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken from the headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.
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