Books That Invite Discussion
by Ethan Pennington
Parenting requires reservoirs of courage that you may be unaware of possessing until tapping into them. Parents must put on a brave face in doctor’s visits with sick children, ride out turbulent plane rides, and explain societal shifts that occur beneath our feet. We do not know what will be on the other side, or how to explain it to our kids.
Parenting requires reservoirs of courage that you may be unaware of possessing until tapping into them. Parents must put on a brave face in doctor’s visits with sick children, ride out turbulent plane rides, and explain societal shifts that occur beneath our feet. We do not know what will be on the other side, or how to explain it to our kids.
Turning to literature for assistance when answering tough questions, or to begin uncomfortable conversations, is a familiar tradition. I was twelve when I sat with Scout in the balcony during the trial of Tom Robinson. I loved studying Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Stories provide a safe fictional place to teach tough lessons, and wrestle with difficult questions. They give us room to breathe.
Below are three recommendations of fiction by Alexandra Alter from The New York Times. They might make this moment of national reckoning easier to discuss.
The Hate U Give, which takes its title from a phrase coined by the rapper Tupac Shakur, is one of a cluster of young-adult novels that confront police brutality, racial profiling, and the Black Lives Matter movement.
In Ghost Boys, a middle-grade novel by Jewell Parker Rhodes, the ghost of a young black boy who was shot by a white police officer witnesses the aftermath of his death, and meets the ghosts of other black boys, including Emmett Till, the black teenager who was killed by white men in 1955.
Young Readers will publish Nic Stone’s debut novel, Dear Martin, about a black high school scholarship student at an Atlanta prep school who becomes a victim of racial profiling when an off-duty officer fires at him and his best friend during an argument at a traffic light.
