Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Dear Martin by Nic Stone was published in 2017. I've been actively seeking out books written by authors and illustrators of color.  Nic Stone tells an important story about bias and racism in our current day.

I liked this story because of the tie to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I liked that the main character is introspective. I think this would be a good book to teach at the high school level.

Justyce, the main character, attends a mostly white school with his best friend Manny. Justyce is an excellent student who experiences daily micro-aggressions and often blatant racism. The story opens with Justyce being detained and put in handcuffs even though he has not committed a crime. This experience haunts him throughout the story.

One day while driving with Manny, the radio turned way up, they encounter an off-duty cop who in anger shoots at the boys. The media fallout is brutal. This story has mature language. It's an important story where Justyce continually tries to live his life in the manner of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. but finds there are no easy answers to What would Martin do?

Link to our NICU book registry to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.

Read to a child today even if that child is you.