THE BLACK KIDS by Christina Hammonds Reed

Reed, C. The Black Kids, (2020) New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. 

grades 9-12 according to Amazon

“People glorify protest when white kids do it, when it’s chic, frustrated Parisian kids or British coal miners or suffragettes smashing windows and throwing firebombs at inequality. If white kids can run around wearing their bodies like they’re invincible, what do the rest of us do? Those of us who are breakable. Those of us who feel hopeless and frustrated and tired and sick of feeling this way again and again? Sometimes we just go ahead and break ourselves.”  

“I can’t tell if loneliness is being black, or being young or being a girl or if Lucia’s right and I need new friends. I don’t know. 

‘It might be lonelier / Without the loneliness,’ Emily wrote.

And she was white as shit.”

Those two quotes exemplify what I love about The Black Kids. 

This work of historical fiction, set in 1992 (when I was already an adult - please excuse me for a minute while I re-up on geritol and stool softener) looks at the Rodney King verdict and the response in Los Angeles through the eyes of a high school senior who is a black girl in a predominantly white upper-class school. Her parents are strivers who want nothing more than for their children to have a longer, sweeter childhood and better options for the future. They have achieved the American dream. Their kids are “soft.”

There is a lot going on in the book but what I loved is the way that the different threads strengthened each other. The parallel between Grandma Shirley’s likely mental illness and Jo’s is subtle but telling.  The way Ashley connects with Micheal vs. the way she connects with LaShawn is lovely. And the differences between Ashley’s old, gold mean-girl friends and the kind but messy Lana and the “black kids” is nuanced. 

I had to stop reading this for a couple days when I realized it was time for prom and the foreshadowing that something was definitely going to go down was overwhelming. The book didn’t pull punches. Ashley got a close up look at how racism is ingrained in society and it propelled her into a more thoughtful look at the burning of L.A. 

For a book about friendship where Ashley spends little or no time alone, there is a pervasive feeling of loneliness that seems to stem from her search for an identity that she can be proud of. 

This is a fascinating story set at a time in history that looked very different depending on your perspective. The differences between how Ashley perceives the riots as opposed to her formerly sheltered sister and her knowing cousin gives an excellent overview. 

This book broke my heart and educated me and it will do the same for teens who pick it up.