Thomas added race to these relationships, causing us to think even deeper about how we work for each other’s liberation.Īngie Thomas grew up in Mississippi, and earned a BFA in Creative Writing from Belhaven University. (1990) Inviting readers into the story in this way is what Bishop refers to as sliding glass doors, when “readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author.” (Bishop1990) In providing more than one officer in the text, more than one way of performing the job, Thomas invites readers to engage in critical thinking not only around one particular event-the shooting- in the book, but how people in a society interact, whether it be boyfriend/girlfriend, best friends, parents, or siblings.

Rudine Sim’s Bishop’s work on mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors lately. In the portrayal Thomas provides, she creates room for dialog about the relationship between the police and the Black community. Some have problems with the portrayal of law enforcement officers in the story, one of whom is Starr’s uncle. They choose to ignore the literary merit of the book as well as it’s important social message and, challenge the story. It doesn’t matter that profanity is on the rise in the US, or what the outcomes are for a well-placed ‘f’ bomb, parents just don’t want their children to hear it. Yet, based upon the profanity in the book, the ‘f’ word in particular, there are parents and community members who do not want the book in libraries or classrooms. There all such good books, as were a few that didn’t earn recognition. You’ll have to try to imagine the rigorous discussion that each these books had based on their literary merit.

That year, We Are Okay (Dutton) by Nina LaCouer won the medal and The Hate You Give (Balzer+Bray) by Angie Thomas, Long Way Down (Atheneum) by Jason Reynolds, and Strange the Dreamer (Little, Brown Books) by Laini Taylor were the honor books. I’ve once again seen The Hate You Give is being challenged in schools and I’m realizing that I’ve never reviewed the book on this blog! It came out during my Printz year and I couldn’t review it.

The hate book