Eight years ago tonight, I gathered in a small library meeting room (not even an auditorium) to hear Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely share how they came to write All American Boys. I was thrilled that the middle school librarian in my school district was there, too (Debra Quarles!!!) and at the end of their talk, we asked Jason & Brendan to take a picture. As we chatted about their book tour, it turned out Brendan needed a packaged mailed, so I did that for him, the next day. That conversation led to a few texts, and then Debra and I working with a larger group to bring All American Boys Read-Ins to Shaker Heights, and to invite Jason & Brendan to come back to Cleveland, to our high school auditorium.
That second visit was packed. The book was being celebrated, and many more folks were reading the book, celebrating these authors, but also, I hope, reflecting on what they learned from Quinn and Rashad's stories. From that final scene of a student-organized protest. From seeing Tamir Rice's name. Freddy Gray's name. Eric Garner's name. So many other names. Too many other names. "We are here to say, enough is enough!" We read and talked about the book in small groups; with police officers; with parents. In classrooms. In libraries. Across age and across race. Through unease and questions, and through the complicated space of building community across difference.
And every day since then, it's been important to work to make sure books like All American Boys, authors like Jason and Brendan, and stories like Quinn's and Rashad's are not silenced. This book, and so many others that unpack race and justice, equity and inclusion, pains and celebrations, belong in our curriculums and libraries.
A few lines from Brendan Kiely's note in the Acknowledgments:
"We all live here. There are no bystanders. We all have a role."
Thank you, Jason & Brendan, for this book, your words, and this complex, truthful, important story. Oh, how it still helps me understand the ways a book can help us understand the world, be our windows and mirrors (thank you, Rudine Sims Bishop, too), and call us in to our shared humanity, to be upstanders, to play our role. I am grateful.
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