Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

 genre: young adult non-fiction, history, race-relations

I am so impressed by this not-history book - this look into how race relations in the United States became what they are today. The tone is perfect for teens - not overbearing but also not shying away from the ugly and painful truth. From colonialism to slavery to the Civil War down to the present - and with such influential thinkers as W. E. B.  DuBois, Malcom X, MLK Jr, Angela Davis, this book TELLS history in an approachable way that cuts through the nonsense. And every once and a while Reynolds will force us as readers to STOP. He gives us the opportunity, if we are willing, to actually think about what this person said or what this particular law actually meant - to grasp the enormity of the issues and what's at stake.  This book is intended to clear the fog away from the sorts of racist and assimilationist ideas that have just become somehow acceptable and it shows those ideas in all their nasty reality.

I can better see my country’s past without racistly-tinted glasses because of this book. Glad I read it and purchased a copy for my home.