Affluence is not an impermeable barrier from the destructive forces of racism--a stark truth high school senior Ashley Bennett is forced to face in Christina Hammonds Reed's YA debut, The Black Kids. Filled with multi-dimensional characters who stretch way beyond stereotypes, the book unfolds in the turbulent spring of 1992, when the Los Angeles area was engulfed in a wave of riots after the four police officers on trial for severely beating unarmed Rodney King were acquitted of all charges.
Intelligent, popular and the only Black girl in her clique, Ashley struggles to accept how race impacts her friendships, familial relationships and self-perception. But once L.A. County starts burning, she observes that, like a spark can trigger a raging wildfire, unchecked biases are rolling tides that eventually surge into waves of hatred. Ashley tries to stay afloat as she recognizes and feels this hatred aimed at herself and her loved ones.
In response, Ashley reflects: "Because even though you finally enact a Civil Rights Act not even thirty years ago, it doesn't erase centuries of unequal access, unequal schooling, unequal living conditions, unequal policing." Reed's stark account of the limitations Black communities have historically faced in the United States, regardless of socioeconomic status, is an answer to the calls for equity and racial justice that for too long have been ignored. --Rachel Werner, Hugo House and The Loft Literary Center faculty