Join authors Kim Johnson and Alex Richards in a discussion: Violence and Social Justice in Young Adult novels.

THIS IS MY AMERICA | ISBN: 9780593118764 | BUY HERE

Kim Johnson has held leadership positions in social justice organizations as a teen and in college. She’s now a college administrator who maintains civic engagement throughout the community while also mentoring Black student activists and leaders. She is also the graduate advisor and member of a historically Black sorority. This Is My America is her debut novel and explores racial injustice against innocent Black men who are criminally sentenced and the families left behind to pick up the pieces. She holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Maryland, College Park.

“Incredible and searing.” —Nic Stone, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin

The Hate U Give meets Just Mercy in this unflinching yet uplifting first novel that explores the racist injustices in the American justice system. Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time–her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town’s racist history that still haunt the present? Fans of Nic Stone, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Jason Reynolds won’t want to miss this provocative and gripping debut.

ACCIDENTAL | ISBN: 9781547603589 | BUY HERE

Alex Richards has been writing young adult fiction since the age of ten, with stacks of spiral notebooks to prove it. Also a freelance magazine contributor, Alex enjoys making no-budget horror movies, taking photographs, and crafting. Raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Alex lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two very silly kids.

Accidental is a timely, emotionally-resonant story about a teen girl dealing with the aftermath of a tragic shooting. Johanna has had more than enough trauma in her life. She lost her mom in a car accident, and her father went AWOL when Johanna was just a baby, leaving her to be raised by her grandparents who never talk about their daughter, her mother Mandy. Then he comes back: Robert Newton, Johanna’s father, bringing memories and pictures of Mandy, along with shocking truths about her death. Now Johanna has to sort through it all—the return of her absentee father, her grandparents’ lies, her part in her mother’s death. But no one, neither her loyal best friends nor her sweet new boyfriend, can help her forgive them. Most of all, can she ever find a way to forgive herself? In a searing, ultimately uplifting story, Richards tackles a different side of the important issue of gun violence that has galvanized teens across our country.

Violence and Social Justice in YA with Alex Richards and Kim Johnson