All American Boys – Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

 

All American Boys
Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
September 29, 2015

Nothing will make you feel quite as ill-read as attending a two-day YA literature conference with a ballroom full of YA librarians and  booksellers. It’s something to do with the superpowers imparted on them at their knighting ceremony that allows them encyclopedic knowledge of absolutely everything – it’s very mysterious. I left with a notebook page full of TBRs and a tote bag full of books from the conference bookstore.

One such book was All American Boys. Co-author Brendan Kiely was a panelist at the conference and by the end of the weekend, I was convinced I had to read everything he’s written. He was not only hilarious but spoke passionately and consistently about diversity in YA and children’s media as well as representations of safe and consensual adolescent relationships in YA.

I. Was. Down.

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After his father’s daily reminders that “there’s no better opportunity for a black boy in this country than to join the army,” quiet and artistic Rashad begrudgingly joins JROTC. As Reynolds and Kiely lay out in their dual-narrator novel, Rashad shouldn’t bother with enlisting – he and his black classmates are already at war.

All American Boys follows the converging narratives of two high school age boys – one white and one black – following an incident of police brutality. Rashad finds himself in the national spotlight after being wrongly accused of stealing  from a convenience store and brutally beaten by a white police officer. Quinn is a witness to the incident and personal friend/surrogate son to the cop in question. Both boys must decide how they will move forward, the choices they make having irreversible effects on their families and communities.

It is in no way lost on the reader that Quinn gets to debate his involvement in the incident and larger conversation between basketball games and trips to the local pizza joint, while Rashad is forced to watch his story play out on the national stage from the discomfort of a hospital bed. If the dialog at times feels heavy-handed, it’s because it needs to be. All American Boys is painfully relevant, exploring the hurtful and confusing aftermath of police brutality, the importance of open dialog, and the necessity for standing up and speaking out for what is right.