Book Review of All American Boys

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reynolds, Jason and Kiely, Brendan. 2015. ALL AMERICAN BOYS. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division. ISBN 9781481463331.


PLOT SUMMARY

Rashad Butler, a black high school student, experiences police profiling and brutality when he is arrested for alleged shoplifting. His schoolmate, Quinn Collins, witnesses the arrest and is shocked by it. It is even more shocking because the officer is the older brother of one of his high school basketball teammates. This older brother had helped raise Quinn after his father had been killed in Afghanistan. The beating that Rashad experiences at the hands of the policeman lands him in the hospital for a number of days with significant injuries. Quinn tries to come to grips with the situation. He wants to support his schoolmate Rashad, but he also wants to support his teammate (the brother of the police officer) and his teammate’s brother (his surrogate father.) Eventually, against strong opposition from both his family and basketball team, Quinn chooses to march in protest against the police violence that Rashad had suffered.              

 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of Rashad Butler, a teenage black student, and Quinn Collings, a teenage white student. These boys are average teenagers. They’re trying to do the best that they can to get through school and prepare for their futures, while partying with their friends when presented with the opportunity. The high school setting is particularly well-represented from classes, to teachers, to coaches, and athletics. The book begins with the arrest of Rashad witnessed by Quinn. The narrative voice changes in style, diction, and cultural opinion as it bounces between Rashad and Quinn. The biggest take-away from this story is definitely race relationships in the United States. Booklist reviewer Michael Cart points out that “Police brutality and race relations in America are issues that demand debate and discussion, which this superb book powerfully enables.” The second biggest take-away from the novel is how people are always a mixture of good and bad. Even when we think we know someone, there is always something left to surprise us. Quinn discovers that the man who had been his mentor all his life was capable of brutal, uncalled-for violence against a defenseless boy. Rashad finds out that his father had caused an innocent boy to be paralyzed from the waist down for life due to a mistake he made firing his gun when he shouldn’t have. The courage that Rashad and Quinn display at the end of the story, as they participate in the protest march, is a shared quality that hopefully will eventually end racism someday in our country’s future. In her School Library Journal starred review Ashleigh Williams says, “As events unfold, both boys are forced to confront the knowledge that racism in America has not disappeared and that change will not come unless they step forward.” Finally, this review would be incomplete without pointing out that the novel was co-written by a black man and a white man working together. The authors, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, wanted to address the current events that are happening in the United States regarding race relationships, which they do with candor and intelligence. Props to them both!   

 

 

AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPTS

2016 Walter Dean Myers Award Winner

2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award for Young Adult Fiction Winner

BOOKLIST starred review: “With Reynolds writing Rashad’s first-person narrative and Kiely writing Quinn’s, this hard-edged, ripped-from-the-headlines book is more than a problem novel; it’s a carefully plotted, psychologically acute, character-driven work of fiction that dramatizes an all-too-frequent occurrence.

KIRKUS review: “If the hands and agenda of the authors are evident, their passion elevates the novel beyond a needed call to action to a deeply moving experience.”

SCHOOL LIBRARY starred review: “VERDICT: Great for fostering discussions about current events among teenage audiences. A must-have for all collections.”

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY starred review: “In this painful and all-too-timely book, two authors one black, one white present a story of police brutality…The scenario that Reynolds and Kiely depict has become a recurrent feature of news reports, and a book that lets readers think it through outside of the roiling emotions of a real-life event is both welcome and necessary.”

CONNECTIONS

This is a good introduction to police profiling, police-community relationships, police brutality, social justice, and other contemporary issues.  

* Other books related to this one:

Stone, Nic. 2017. DEAR JUSTYCE. ISBN 9781471186936.

Stone, Nic. 2017. DEAR MARTIN. ISBN 9781101939499.

Thomas, Angie. 2021. CONCRETE ROSE. ISBN 9780062846716.

Thomas, Angie. 2017. THE HATE U GIVE. ISBN 9780062498533.

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