A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor publication, and receiver of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Books.

In this NY Times bestselling book, two teens-one black, one white-grapple using the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their college, their community, and, ultimately, the united states bitterly divided by racial tension.

A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the part bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, about All American Boys Paul Galluzzo, who errors Rashad to get a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing at all for belligerence, errors Rashad’s level of resistance to keep the bodega as resisting arrest, errors Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further level of resistance and refusal to remain STILL as ordered. But how will you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?

There were witnesses: Quinn Collins-a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s classmate that has been raised simply by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan-and a video camera. Shortly the beating is definitely all around the information and Paul gets threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn won’t believe that the man who has essentially been his savior could possibly be guilty. But Rashad is absent. And absent once again. And again. And the basketball team-half of whom are Rashad’s best friends-start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are compelled to handle decisions and consequences they had under no circumstances considered before.

Created in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred examined tour de pressure shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn mainly because the complications from that one violent moment, the sort used directly from today’s headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.