Book review - All You Have to Do

 

Title: All You Have to Do

Author: Autumn Allen

Genre: historical fiction

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Rating:

 

thought provoking

Summary (provided by publisher): In ALL YOU HAVE TO DO, two Black young men attend prestigious schools nearly thirty years apart, and yet both navigate similar forms of insidious racism.
In April 1968, in the wake of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, Kevin joins a protest that shuts down his Ivy League campus...
In September 1995, amidst controversy over the Million Man March, Gibran challenges the “See No Color” hypocrisy of his prestigious New England prep school...
As the two students, whose lives overlap in powerful ways, risk losing the opportunities their parents worked hard to provide, they move closer to discovering who they want to be instead of accepting as fact who society and family tell them they are.

My opinion: I like the way this book blends two tough political and racial climates. We see how these two young men struggle to be accepted at their schools, to prove to their white peers that admission is not the same thing as belonging. Their is a lot of discussion of being seen, heard, acknowledged. The writing moves quickly and keeps us engaged and eagerly advancing through the plot. Which is almost a shame, because these are concepts that are worthy of thought, of lingering and contemplating. I could easily see using this book with a group of modern teens to spark discussion of the current approaches to race and how events in the news (MLK's death, the Million Man March, BLM protests) affect how we approach questions of racial inequality.

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley