From Powells.com
Staff recommendations, guest essays, and curated reading lists.
Hot new releases and under-the-radar gems for adults and kids.
Staff Pick
Jason Reynolds’s poem about living through the tumult of 2020, about the experience of Black America as life was changing in some ways and maddeningly unchanging in others, is made all the more powerful by being in dialogue with Jason Griffin’s breathtaking art. Recommended By Keith M., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Prepare yourself for something unlike anything: A smash-up of art and text for teens that viscerally captures what it is to be Black. In America. Right Now. Written by #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds.
Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW.
And so for anyone who didn't really know what it means to not be able to breathe, REALLY breathe, for generation s, now you know. And those who already do, you'll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is.
Review
“Author Reynolds and artist Griffin, friends and previous collaborators (My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.), explore recent events in America through a poetic multimedia partnership told in three ‘breaths.’" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
“[A] searing indictment of the status quo….This creative, timely reflection will be particularly admired by teens seeking change.” Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
“While grounded in 2020, many of the issues touched on explicitly are very much not over and not even new, making this remarkable work both timely and timeless. Artful, cathartic, and most needed.” Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors. He's also the 2020-2021 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely), When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit, Stamped, As Brave as You, For Every One, the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu), Look Both Ways, and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.
Jason Griffin created the artwork for My Name Is Jason. Mine Too, written by Jason Reynolds. He's an artist and master collaborator, who has shown his art in major cities all over the world. his most recent projects include a commissioned mural for the children's cancer wing at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, as well as a residency at the new contemporary art museum in Amsterdam, Het HEM. He currently creates in Queens, New York.