The book is about two best friends, Justyce and Manny. Both of them are black, and they get confronted by the problems many black people have to deal with. At the beginning of the book, Justyce gets arrested by a police officer because he tries to help a drunk girl, but the officer thinks that he tried to kidnap the girl. After this, Justyce has to think a lot about racism. This gets even worse when his best friend Manny gets shot by a police officer just because they are listening to loud music. Something I didn’t expect was that the book caused me to think a lot about hidden racism. People who are confronted with racism often interpret racism differently from people that don't have to deal with it. It also let me think about racism in the form of normalized behavior that most of the people don't even recognize because they see it as a normal thing. This is very dangerous because when you are used to this ground level of racism that still exists in our society, you don't reorganize more extreme racism. This is also shown in the book in which one moment a person just makes a “harmless” racist joke but in the next moment Manny gets shot just because he is black. This example is very extreme because most people would never treat a black person differently from a white person. But “racism” is not just the discrimination against people with different skin color, it’s rather the discrimination against any person because they are different. This still happens a lot, especially in schools, where a lot of kids get bullied just because they are slightly different from the average. Everyone should think about how they deal with other people, and how these people think about that. This is what the book makes you do, at least in my case. The book changed my way of thinking about some things. I have a couple of black friends, and they are very open-minded. When they know that you don’t have a real problem with them, they also don't have a problem with dark humor. Sometimes they also make jokes about their skin color by themselves. Before I read the book, I thought this was great because it shows that no one has a problem with each other. But after reading the book, I see a good and bad side about it. I still think it shows that everyone accepts each other, in this friend group, as they are. But I also think that we should take the problem of racism more seriously, even when we don't have any problems with it in this friend group. A lot of other black people don't have the luck to have an environment that is so open-minded. By Leander Buettner
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He didn’t do it, yet the whole world is against him, rooting for him to go to juvie. Amal Shahid was set up by society. His entire world is turned upside down when he is convicted of putting a white boy, Jeremy, into a coma. He was there, but he didn’t throw the last blows that put Jeremy in a coma. He is blamed for someone else's mistakes. He is the perfect scapegoat; he’s not overly wealthy, he has a temper, and he is a Muslim African American. His teachers betray him by telling the court he was different, he was bad, he was angry. Actually, he was just misunderstood. He skipped art school to go to museums, and he talked back because he was curious. Yet, the world has already decided and has written his story. He is a troubled black boy and deserves to go to a juvenile detention camp, they said. In juvie, he has a hard time finding hope after being a victim of the racist justice system. He finds hope and friends through poems, art, and letters. Even when he felt alone in the world, his grandma, uncle, and friends were rooting for him to keep going and not give up hope. After a while, he sets into his new routine of being in juvie, and then he learns that Jeremy woke up from his coma. This book struck a chord with me, and it showed me the racial inequalities in the justice system. I was surprised that Amal was put in juvie even though he didn’t give Jeremy the final blow that ultimately put Jeremy in a coma. In the book, it mentioned how, for him, the judicial system saw him as guilty until proven innocent and not the other way around. I thought the writer’s voice was exquisite, and it was a beautifully written book. I have fallen in love with verse books, and this one helped further my love. Though I sometimes found the metaphors to be hard to understand, I think it gave room for interpretation and thought. I like a book that makes you think, and I believe that verse books make you dive deeper into the real meaning of a story. In this book, the author doesn’t flat out tell you what happened. Instead, they brush around the point and use figurative language to hint at the evens. You, as the reader, have to connect the dots. I believe this book has changed me. Even though I would say I have read many books that talk about inequalities in the world, I think it reinforced my thinking of how racial inequality is everywhere. The book strengthened the idea that I have the upper hand in society due to my skin tone. It’s heartbreaking to think about all the people who have been put in jail even though they didn’t do it, and how their skin color played a role in their loss of years in the real world. Amal talked about how he was set up to fail by society. He was supposed to be troubled, the scapegoat, and a thug because he was of African descent and was Muslim. This book made me think about how many people’s lives have been affected due to racism, specifically judicial racism. By Annika K. When you’re different from everyone around you, it’s easy to believe that you’ll always be alone and never fit in. That’s how Lilliana (Lilli) Cruz felt when she first transferred schools. Lilliana is a Latina teenager who transfers from a mixed race school in the middle of Boston to a predominantly white school an hour away in some suburb. We get to see the world through Lilliana’s eyes in the book “Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From” by Jennifer De Leon. At the beginning of the new school year, Lilli is greeted with the shock of going to a new school, and leaving her best friend and neighbor, Jade, behind. Lilli was accepted into the METCO program, which allows students of color to attend nice schools with resources with only one requirement: must be a student of color. With no other choice, she begins to navigate a new life, where all the regular students ignore her and the other METCO kids seem to hate her. Things don’t magically get better for Lilli when she arrives home each day, either. With her family on a tight budget, now more than ever with her dad out of the picture (for now), life is tough. Things somehow manage to get worse for poor Lilli, when someone makes a racist meme on the real reason her dad isn’t around and may or may not know her family secret. Is there anything Lilli and the METCO kids can do? Can she really help undo the racism in her school? It turns out, she can. At first, I struggled a bit to find a book that fit the reading without walls guidelines, as I am part of a minority. I did find this book, though, and thought it would work, but to be real honest I didn’t think I was going to like it much. However, I did enjoy reading the book, especially from the first person perspective, it allowed me to connect with a person in a different situation (even if they may be fictional). Lilli’s story was heartbreaking at parts and showed the raw reality of inner-city life, and it made me realize just how different our cultures are, and yet how similarly we think and feel as humans. It was almost comical and just as painful to see how the other students in Lilli’s world let simple things like color obstruct from daily life and relationships, and to know that these things are happening in our world. Reading Lilli’s story opened up my eyes as to how sheltered and oblivious people can be to others when they are privileged. As much as no one wants to admit it, race still has a significance when a group is not diverse. The regular students didn’t react well to the race presentation because they couldn’t understand the problem as they had never experienced it first hand. The thought of this emphasizes my belief that education is the best way to deal with hatred. People fear what they don’t understand, and that fear turns into anger that’s taken out on those they don’t understand. Lilli brought this full circle when she created the “wall” to help the other students connect and understand each other's struggles. The first perspective of the book allowed me to see the raw emotions shown in the characters through the story, making it more relatable for me as a reader. By Amelia P. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender is a passionate story about finding out who you truly are. This book is told by a high school-age artistic, black, queer, and trans boy, Felix Love. Because of how Felix identifies himself, he faces many challenges within school and society itself. Felix also struggles with relationships with his family, friends, and love interests throughout the book. Felix has good friends that are always there for him, but when school bullies, second thoughts on how he identifies himself, and confusing feelings for his best friend and his enemy come into the picture, Felix has a long journey of finding his voice and finding out who he is ahead of him. Felix Ever After is an extremely well-written book that I would recommend to kids my age. Callender presents conflicts that Felix struggles with that can be relatable to many high school students. Felix is a raw and loveable character that you can’t help connecting with throughout the book, and it is fun to see how Felix grows and comes to have a stronger voice that he lacked in the beginning. The book also shows a lot of diversity between students and their identities that I think students from a small town such as ours could benefit from reading about. Finally, the laid-back voice of this piece of writing causes for an enjoyable read! I chose this book because we were supposed to choose a book about someone different than us. I can’t think of a character that could be any different from me physically than Felix because he is black, trans, queer, and a boy. Though we are very physically different, I related to some of his struggles throughout the book, such as finding out who you are and what you want to do with your life. Throughout the story, it mentioned that Felix didn’t know if what he was doing was what he was meant to be doing with his life. I relate to this because I worry a lot about getting good grades, but I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I find myself wondering if all the time I spend studying is worth it or if my grades will even matter later on. I also learned a lot about the lifestyles and feelings of transgender people and people that are different from me. I have always respected people who are transgender and thought they were brave for being who they know they are, even though some don’t like it. Although this story is fictional, I thought it was cool to learn about transgender people from the point of view of a transgender person. I enjoyed this book because I could relate to some of the struggles that the high school students in the book face, but also because it taught me how to be aware of the feelings and struggles that others face. by Lily I. Quote: “Everything. I’m scared I’m not living my life to my full potential. I’m scared I’m wasting my life when I’m meant to be doing something else, something more.” (Callendar 194) Imagine having never left your house for as long as you can remember. This is the reality for Madeline in Nicola Yoon’s book Everything, Everything. Madeline has a very rare disease where essentially she is allergic to the world. Because anything could cause her to have an allergic reaction, she never goes outside. Madeline is okay with this situation because it is all that she has ever known. But when a new boy, Olly, moves in next door, Maddy begins to realize what she has been missing out on. And as she gets to know Olly better, she begins to long for a more “normal” life. Eventually, she decides that she can’t keep wasting her life, so she and Olly take a trip to Hawaii, her first time out of the house in nearly 17 years. She thoroughly enjoys the trip and getting to spend time with Olly. Even though she wasn’t sure if she was going to physically live for the whole trip, she decided that it was worth dying to get to actually live a little bit instead of staying in her house for the rest of her life. This book really got me thinking about all of the things that I take for granted. Even really simple things that I do every day, Madeline couldn’t do. For example, I go outside multiple times every day, even if it’s just walking from my house to the car, or from the car to school. But Madeline never got to experience things like this. The other thing that this book really reminded me of, is that even though I try really hard to treat people who are different than me the same, it can be really hard to always do this. For instance, while I try not to think about people differently based on the color of their skin, racism has been in my blood since before I was born, simply because of the society that I live in. This really became clear to me when I first picked up this book. I wasn’t sure if it would work for this assignment because I thought that it was about a white girl who was about the same age as me. But once I started reading and found out that she was a part black, part Asian girl, I really started to question myself. I knew nothing about the ethnicity of Madeline, I had simply assumed that she was white. This really made me start thinking about what other things I assume about people without any facts to back them up. One thing that Madeline talks about a lot is living your life, even if for her, it meant dying. This was something that really went to my heart, and I have been trying to think more about it recently. Sometimes when I’m trying to make a difficult decision, it’s helpful for me to remember that I need to be living my life, even if it seems like there might be “more important” things to do. They probably won’t matter in the future, and I’ll be happy that I have lived a little! Also, once Maddy had made the decision to live her life fully, that in itself helped her feel better. Sometimes just deciding to do something can help you feel better, which is something that I have felt in my heart before, and will do so more often after reading this book. “Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddy’s: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small price to pay for it... the second Maddy knows that this pale half life is not really living” (Yoon 167). Sylvia S. The book I decided to pick from the library shelf was American Street by Ibi Zoboi. It told of a teenage girl, Fabiola, who moved to Detroit from Haiti. She experiences her mother’s detainment in the US, while trying to adjust to the new ways of life in Detroit with her aunt and cousins. Through her time, she finds love and family, forcing her to make tough decisions as opportunities arise. With these new experiences in her new home, Fabiola changes from an innocent, naive Haitian girl. I picked this book because it challenged my perspective of what other teenagers’ lives are like. Fabiola and her cousins lived in Detroit, a city much more dangerous and violent than my own. This, as a result, changed the way the teenagers lived their lives, such as keeping a gun in the house. In addition, the family in the book was a different race than I, so I noticed the racism that they faced. For example, how unfairly the police treated the people in Fabiola’s neighborhood. Also, this book broadened my cultural views. The Haitian religion Fabiola believed in, was much different than any religion I participate in or have learned about. In addition, this book challenged the family setting that I know. In the story, Fabiola’s mother was being detained because she wasn’t a U.S. citizen. I never have to worry about my family being split up or being taken away. The book meets this reading without walls guidelines because, although it is about a teenager, her life and culture is completely different than mine. The bad situations that come upon her are much worse than I can even imagine. From reading this book, I have begun to understand what it’s like living in a dangerous place. Since the story was told from Fabiola’s first-person account, I began to understand what she was feeling as she encountered danger and hardships in her life. I also took, from the book, how difficult it is for an outsider to live in a different world, as seen when Fabiola moved to Detroit from Haiti. Right from the beginning, Fabiola felt alien to her new world. “Is she[Fabiola’s mom] being detained? I stare and blink and shake my head. I search my brain for this word, trying to find the Creole word for it.” Though her life is unlike mine, after reading the book, I could still find ways to relate to Fabiola and her family. Through all of her loss, she still had the love from her cousins and aunt. Fabiola having to experience all of the danger of Detroit made me feel very sympathetic for the people who are stuck in those areas. Also, it made me realize how easy it would be to take up bad habits in order to protect family. Fabiola beginning her new life in Detroit as an innocent Haitian girl and growing to be one of the Four Bees showed me that people can change through experiences, time, and people. Finally, the “real” language that the author used really helped me see that, although their lives are different from my own, those lives still exist and need to be recognized. By Morgan I read the book, How Dare the Sun Rise, by Sandra Uwiringiyimana. This book explains Sandra’s childhood experiences with war, being a refugee, living in poverty, being an immigrant, and working to make a better world. She grew up in Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, and when she was ten years old her family was forced to go to a refugee camp in Burundi. Soon after they arrived in the refugee camp there was a massacre where her younger sister died, along with many friends and family. Sandra’s family then went to Rwanda where they lived in extreme poverty for the whole time they were there. The United Nations eventually gives them an opportunity to move to the United States, where they think they will have a much better life. They move to Rochester, New York, and although they live in a safer place than before, they have to work very hard to make money, communicate with people, and become citizens. Sandra eventually graduates high school, goes to college, and works to make a better community for people like her. However, in the end she is still haunted by memories of the massacre, refugee camp, and all of the war she lived through as a child. This book was about a person whose life was very different from mine. Sandra’s childhood was full of war and conflict. She hardly had a single year of school that wasn’t interrupted by a war, she lived in poverty for many years, and once she got to the United States she and her family were continually misunderstood. In the book she says, “People sometimes say to me, ‘Oh, you’re so lucky.’ When people say that, I kind of want to punch them in the face. Just because you resettle people doesn’t mean that their lives are suddenly perfect. I lost my little sister in a massacre, fell into the depths of poverty, and fled my homeland. All that, to get to America.” This helped me understand that you can’t just assume what someone thinks or feels about a situation. It also made me realize that immigrants don’t always have a perfect life just because they moved somewhere new. I have never experienced anything she did, or anything even close, but this book helped me to be more empathetic to people who have. Before reading this book, I didn’t have a negative opinion towards immigrants or refugees, but I also didn’t know any specific stories of real people who had those experiences. In this book, Sandra talked about not wanting to be seen as a statistic, or just part of a group of people who are only seen as refugees. Reading this book impacted how I think of refugees, because it made me see them more as people with real lives and personalities. I realized that not everyone who moves to the United States wants to, and may not even have a positive experience here. They also have an entire life that they are leaving behind in their home country, and even if it was a life of poverty or war, they still have connections to that place. I chose to read this book because I knew that I would be reading about someone whose experiences in childhood were extremely different from mine. Reading this book helped me see some of those things from a different perspective, and not just assume that everyone who is living in a poor country has a better life when they come to the United States. I think that this book helped me see the issue of immigration and refugees from a more broad point of view, and it helped me realize that it is important to think about others and realize that everyone has different opinions, and sees things differently through what they have experienced. Meredith T. Imagine being a black lawyer in the late 1980’s for people on death row. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, is a captivating story about how he handles different cases for people on death row. Bryan Stevenson, a black lawyer who represents people on death row, opened a non profit law organization, Equal Justice Initiative, to help poor people in jail who couldn’t afford an attorney. As I read this story I was captivated by Bryan’s story and his clients stories. A lawyer's perspective of the judicial system is totally different than mine. I never realize how biased the jury could be until I read this book. It showed what is truly behind the walls of the justice system and jails and how racism convinces many people to think wrongly about the defendant. This book fit this challenge because I typically go for fiction books because I love how the story is made up and can be sad without bringing you down too much, unlike a nonfiction book about people on death row. I realized how unfair our justice system can be at times, especially when blacks didn’t have as much equality as they do now. Bryan Stevenson was from a poor family who lived in Delaware. He mentions that his grandparents had been slaves in Virginia. He talked about how his grandmother would pull him close to her to see if he felt her presence and if he said no, she would squeeze him harder. His grandfather had been murdered when Bryan was a teenagers. He family did manage to send Bryan to school and he eventually attended Eastern College than Harvard Law School. After finishing college he started representing people on death row then eventually co-owned his own law firm, Equal Justice Initiative. Unfairness in the judicial system is the biggest theme in this book. Just Mercy focuses on a client that Bryan Stevenson represented, Walter McMillian. He is a black man who was accused of rapping a white woman. He was never in trouble with the law and was respected by both white and black communities. McMillian had been having an affair with Karen Kelly, a white woman. This book follows Stevenson’s journey with his case. However, this shows how black men were more susceptible to being arrested and condemned to death row.“We can’t help people on death row without help from people like you.” Just Mercy made me feel so many emotions. From being happy to sad to angry with our country. I never imagined myself sitting down and reading a book based off of documents and real case files about people and their lives. Their stories were so heartbreaking, but it seemed as if Stevenson was trying to show us that we need to step up and take action in this problem just like Steve had told Bryan when he first started. Bryan Stevenson started out as a small nonprofit law organization with not much of anything, but even the littlest things make a big difference. I read “Friday Night Lights” by H. G. Bissinger. Friday Night Lights takes place in Odessa, Texas. In Odessa everything revolves around football. The year is 1988 and the football season is just starting. The book follows players like Brian Chavez, Ivory Christian, Boobie Miles, and Mike Winchell. It also follows head coach Gary Gaines. Every boy who attends Permian High School dreams of playing in the coveted state championship. The players and coaches are all under immense stress to do well by everyone in the town. Coach Gaines gets stress from the financial supporters of the football team. Boobie Miles, the star running back gets hurt during practice and his hopes of a scholarship are crushed. Mike Winchell then has to lead the team. They do well throughout the season and are set to face off against Carter High School. They end up losing 14-9. They return home and have to deal with defeat. I picked this book because I like football, but also knew there would be character's that I don’t have things in common with. The book takes place in Texas where I’ve never been. Also, there are Mexican-American and African-American. I’m caucasian and live in Iowa. I have no idea what it’s like to be someone of color living in Texas. I learned a lot. In the book once Boobie got hurt he was treated like he was useless which shows how race affects decisions made. I also learned about the pressure of being a teenage football player in Texas. Everyone expects you to win the state championship and if you don’t your disgraced. “He responded without the slightest hesitation. 'A big ol’ dumb nigger.'” I chose this quote because one of the coaches says this about Boobie if he didn’t have football. This quote captures the racism involved in the town, school, and football program. I have no idea what it feels like to be criticized just for the color of my skin. I learned a lot from this book about the pressures of being a high school football player in Texas. By Nick Einck Everyone at one point feels it necessarily to make some type of change in their life, whether it’s moving cities, deep cleaning your room, or dying your hair a vibrant color, change is a necessity and also can make someone feel an array of emotions. Sometimes the change that occurs wasn’t planned, or is someone's worst fear, brought into reality. This is especially true for Julia, after her sister dies in a terrible accident, she’s unable to sleep in her own room. So she often finds herself sneaking into her sisters room long after her parents have fallen asleep. Hoping that maybe this would make her feel closer to her sister, Olga. When looking through her sisters stuff Julia finds something, so unlike her sister. She wonders if she ever really knew her, or if her sister was a complete stranger. This new discovery leads her to wanting to find out more about her sisters double life. “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,” was written by Erika L. Sånchez. Its Julias junior year of high school, she’s figuring out what she wants for her career, while constantly arguing with her mother. She mostly just wants a major change in her life, she wants to be independent and able to make her own decisions. Her mother wants the opposite, she’s lead a hard life after crossing the Mexico border into America and she wants Julia to have a better life. Julia leads a pretty normal and calm life, until the day her sister gets hit by a truck while crossing the road. Everyone in her family is devastated, and Julia has lost her closest family member. While trying to find out more about her sister's life, she goes through major changes, maybe ones she didn’t want. I picked this book because even though Julia and I look drastically different and are probably polar opposites when it comes to personalty we still are quite a lot a like. We both have a love for reading and english, but Julia is very outspoken, while I often come off as timid. I think that it also meets the requirements when it comes to how we live, Julia lives in a large city, Chicago to be exact. She regularly ventures to old bookstores and coffee shops. Sometime that can be done in Decorah, but is usually unlikely for me. I learned through reading this book that bad things will always happen to you, it’s unstoppable, but what truly makes a person strong is what they do to overcome adversity and their challenges in life. “Everything changes, for better or for worse, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it’s beautiful, and sometimes it fills us with terror,” (Sånchez 336). By Chloe J. |
AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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