The Black Kids in Between The Pages

Aug 19, 2020 Sylvs (NOVELty Reads) rated it liked it

I honestly believe that this book couldn't have come out at a better time.

With all the controversial topics on the news and terms such as Police Brutality and Black Lives Matter and Racism all becoming more prominent, I believe that this book set itself up as a voice in the chaos of 2020 that spoke up against a lot of the awfulness we see on the streets and on our phone/TV screens. With praise saying it was like a 1992 version of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (which I genuinely did enjoy read I honestly believe that this book couldn't have come out at a better time.

With all the controversial topics on the news and terms such as Police Brutality and Black Lives Matter and Racism all becoming more prominent, I believe that this book set itself up as a voice in the chaos of 2020 that spoke up against a lot of the awfulness we see on the streets and on our phone/TV screens. With praise saying it was like a 1992 version of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (which I genuinely did enjoy reading), I knew I would want to read this ASAP.

The Black Kids follows Ashley Bennett, a fellow black girl who seems to live a charmed life. All her life, her parents have sheltered her from racism and brutality, instead, upholding a facade of wealth and financial stability. After 4 police officers are acquitted of beating Rodney King half to death, Ashley's life gets turned upside down. No longer is she indifferent to the world around her, she's now considered as one of "the black kids." Despite her sister getting involved in the protests and her best friends spreading a nasty rumour about her black friend, LaShawn Johnson, Ashley tries to live life as normal as possible. As the world splinters around her, Ashley questions who she is and who everyone else around her.

As expected, the book dealt with the major theme of race which was the main vein that powered the story. I really felt for LaShawn and for Ashley's involvement in that whole saga. It was awful and I felt the guilt that Ashley had the whole way through the novel. What I didn't expect however, was the focus on friendships specifically with all of Ashley's white friends who weren't as sympathetic to Ashley's situation as people nowadays would have been. There were so many micro-aggressions made, blatant racism displayed and bullying caused by them that I was genuinely pleased with the way the book ended and how they were held accountable for all their wrong-doings.

All in all, I genuinely did enjoy this book and how everything came full-circle. It really gave insight into the history and issue of racism which, unfortunately, is still present today.

ACTUAL RATING: 3.4 STARS ...more

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Feb 08, 2021 Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore rated it really liked it

The Black Kids is set in 1992 around the events of the Rodney King incident, the trial in which the officers who brutalized him were acquitted, and the riots in its aftermath in LA. The book tells the story of a teenaged Ashley Bennett who attends a posh high school and hopes to go to Stanford. Her family are fairly wealthy—both parents well qualified and in good jobs, they live in an affluent neighbourhood, the only Black family there, and she has a full-time nanny/governess, Lucia. At school t The Black Kids is set in 1992 around the events of the Rodney King incident, the trial in which the officers who brutalized him were acquitted, and the riots in its aftermath in LA. The book tells the story of a teenaged Ashley Bennett who attends a posh high school and hopes to go to Stanford. Her family are fairly wealthy—both parents well qualified and in good jobs, they live in an affluent neighbourhood, the only Black family there, and she has a full-time nanny/governess, Lucia. At school too while there are a few other Black kids, Ashley’s friends are mostly white. She and her sister Jo (Josephine) have been kept sheltered by their parents and given every opportunity to do well. Ashley is going through school (where she does fairly well) and also coping with the everyday happenings and challenges of high-school life, from cutting school to hang out with her friends, to the upcoming prom, and of course college admissions. But when the city begins to burn in the protests after the Rodney King trial, she suddenly finds she is no longer being seen as one of the kids, but as one of the ‘Black Kids’. As the situation becomes more tense, people around her seem to change, their prejudices come to the surface, and even her friends don’t seem the same anymore. Yet she tries to continue living her ordinary life. Can Ashley cope?

In Ashley and her family’s story we see the prejudices people have to live with every day, and how race, class and identity play a defining role. While the riots in the city bring people on edge and bring their prejudices to the surface, one can see in her narration, how even before that, even when her family was living a ‘normal’ life, how different their normal was—despite their education, their position and their wealth. They are living in an affluent neighbourhood but are questioned by firemen who can’t seem to accept that they could be living in such a place, Ashley’s mother driving with her in their new expensive car is stopped and must prove that she is the owner, and her parents are often taken for their own assistants in the places they work. Hearing prejudicial and discriminatory language is no surprise, and they must keep their heads down, go that extra mile and work extra hard at all they do just because of their identity. And this in normal times. This certainly makes one question what kind of society we live in—what do all those claims of recognizing and protecting human rights, living as free and equal beings really mean? Can we really claim to live in such societies when in some form or other this happens around us all the time?

I think the author does a great job in putting this across, and making us feel this injustice. And also indeed, with the violence and unrest in the city, the impact that Ashley sees around her, on her family (her father’s brother and their store), and the attitude of people around them, she begins to realise this truth and eventually questions things around her. Even who her friends really are, and perhaps at some level also where she herself belongs.

In much of the story, at some level one feels as though Ashley and her family are away from all that is happening around them, going on with daily life, never in any real danger, until things come closer home, and they must experience some of it first-hand. Amidst all this Ashley is also trying to cope with the problems of daily life, and in this she falters. She may not be a bad person but she certainly makes some foolish mistakes (some of which made one wonder whether she was any different from her friends) which she must eventually face up to.

Overall I felt this book deals with a really important and strong theme and puts the point of the prejudice, the discrimination across really well—it makes us realise how unjust society and the system are, and feel for what the characters must go through. At the same time, as a story, it didn’t really hold my attention as well as I expected it to.

3.75 stars.
...more

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May 29, 2021 Zitong Ren rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, diverse, 2021, lgbtqi, action, contains-romance

Read with the Between the Pages bookclub for our Member’s BOTM for May.

Ok, well, this was quite an impactful novel that I really happened to enjoy. It does touch on many problems with society that we are still dealing with today across the world. It’s easy to look on at America and say oh look how bad they are, without reflecting on the situations in your own country, especially if you are outside the states. I think that a lot of BIPOC will be able to relate with a fair number of things in this Read with the Between the Pages bookclub for our Member’s BOTM for May.

Ok, well, this was quite an impactful novel that I really happened to enjoy. It does touch on many problems with society that we are still dealing with today across the world. It’s easy to look on at America and say oh look how bad they are, without reflecting on the situations in your own country, especially if you are outside the states. I think that a lot of BIPOC will be able to relate with a fair number of things in this novel, like microaggressions, prejudice and casually racist people.

See, this novel is set in the 1990s and centred around the Rodney King protests and how it affected people, especially the Black community at the time. Fast forward thirty years later and haha, oh looky look nothing has changed. It is sad at how the ‘progress’ the world has made and the so-called reforms from politicians from all sides have not been enough. I think that considering that this novel was published just last year, it does reflect upon the world at how little race relations have actually improved and it really highlighted how much more the world must improve for a more equal society.

I thought the characters were written well and they were interesting people to follow. Ashley, the protagonist, was someone I could certainly relate with, in that she hung out with the white kids and became friends with them despite the constant casual racist remarks that were made her away and sort of grew accustomed to it. So, the character development there of learning to not put up with stuff that made her uncomfortable was really good. There was a fair bit of drama surrounding the characters, but I thought it was all handled well in a realistic manner. I never liked Ashley’s ‘friends’ from the start, I don’t think the reader was meant to, so it was interesting to have seen what changed there. I did quite like how all of Ashley’s family members were written such as Jo, and it was truly so unfortunate at what transpired throughout the novel.

One slight criticism that I had especially for the start is that I felt it needed a bit more direction in that I didn’t see what the point was yet. The themes and message certainly became much clearer the more I read, I just wish that it was made more distinct at the start of the novel. I also probably would have liked a bit more plot, though I understand that this novel’s focus was on its characters, which were done well.

I found the writing style to be quite interesting and I did believe it added to the character and overall feel of this novel. It was really unique as to how this novel was narrated and I loved that the author played around with how she told this story, and it did benefit the way this novel flowed so I really enjoyed that. It gave off different vibes and I appreciated that.

To summarise, I really enjoyed this, and aside from a few criticisms from me, it was really good. 8/10 ...more

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Sep 09, 2020 anna ✩ rated it really liked it

4 stars!

I’ve got to be honest, I struggled a little bit with the pacing of this one as I feel like there was a lot of writing in it that didn’t necessarily need to be there. But other than that, this book was extremely educational.

If you’re the kind of reader who can’t get into reading non-fiction, I highly recommend reading this fictional one as a way to educate yourself.

The Black Kids feels entirely too real given everything we’ve witnessed in 2020. And the year before that. And the year be ...more

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Mar 31, 2021 akacya ❦ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ownvoices, audience-young-adult, black-authors, format-physical, genre-historical

this was an amazing story! i loved the narration and that it was set in the 90s but still felt super relatable today.

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Jul 14, 2020 Eileen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020netgalleychallenge, historical-fiction, netgalley-arc, 2020, social-justice, 2020-ng-group-challenge, teen-young-adult, contemporary, 2020genrechallenge, race

This was a pretty good debut novel that covers some very important and relevant issues. Although the story moved slowly at times and sometimes it felt like the author was trying to include everything, my final impression was that the author shows a lot of promise and I look forward to reading future books by her. I've been reading a number of fiction and non-fiction work recently that covers racial issues and while this may not be the best of the best, I liked how realistic it was. Ashley is a b This was a pretty good debut novel that covers some very important and relevant issues. Although the story moved slowly at times and sometimes it felt like the author was trying to include everything, my final impression was that the author shows a lot of promise and I look forward to reading future books by her. I've been reading a number of fiction and non-fiction work recently that covers racial issues and while this may not be the best of the best, I liked how realistic it was. Ashley is a black girl who has been sheltered by her very wealthy parents because of how they grew up and all the problems they had to face because they were poor and black. They worked doubly hard to get to where they are and all they want to do is shelter her and her sister from as much as they can. Her older sister fights against that, even as she sees all the racial injustice around her. But she sees not only racial injustice, but injustices of any kind, especially classicism. Ashley knows she's privileged, and for awhile, she lives in a bubble where she can ignore the inequity, but little things sneak in, including words said by her best friends. But she's been taught by her parents that she needs to be smarter, stronger, faster, better, etc., than white people because she will never get a pass as a black person. So when things crop up, she often chooses to back down instead of making a fuss. Because as a black person AND a woman, she needs to make sure she's not too loud, too obnoxious, too angry, too big, too this, too that. This story takes place during the Rodney King trial and the LA riots, which definitely takes me back to that time period. I was in my "sheltered" place at the Claremont Colleges (which I was excited to hear Ashley mention), but my parents were in Covina and we were all relatively sheltered from the violence. My memory is a bit fuzzy about what my family thought about all of it, partly because I was definitely not as "woke" as I am now, and as many young people are today. I'm really glad this book exists today and I have to admit the cover really caught my eye as well. Besides racial injustice, this book mentions the AIDS epidemic, the haves vs the haves not, communism, being singled out by law enforcement and not being given the benefit of the doubt because of the color of your skin, the incarceration of black and brown bodies over white bodies, the Greenwood Tulsa Massacre (which I had never heard of), domestic abuse, suicide, and community. As I mentioned above, the author packs a LOT into this book, and sometimes it seems a bit overwhelming. But I applaud her for doing so, and using her voice to raise some of these issues to readers. I look forward to seeing what she'll write next.

Thanks to #ChristinaHammondsReed, #SimonandShusterChildrensPublishing, and #NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. ...more

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Feb 12, 2022 Lianne Anta rated it really liked it

This was a fantastic coming of age story following Ashley as she navigates through life in LA during the early 90’s, we follow Ashley as she deals with High school, college applications and her sister taking part in the Riots during 1992. The writing was fantastic and highlighted friendship and family issues. Very well written and executed.

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