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The Hate U Give

Starr’s childhood friend, Khalil, is driving her home when they are pulled over by the police in for a broken taillight. After patting Khalil down, the white officer tells him to stay put and walks back to the patrol car. Khalil opens the driver’s door and asks Starr if she’s ok. The police officer shoots and kills Khalil. Over the next 13 weeks, Starr struggles with shock, grief, anger, fear, rage, and indecision about whether to testify. Several issues complicate Starr’s thinking: worry about a local gang leader who intimidates through fear and violence; worry about jeopardizing her father, a current business owner and former gang member who changed his life trajectory while in prison; her strained friendship with two friends who aren’t African American at the private school she attends; her mixed feelings about her white boyfriend; her mother’s wish to move the family to a safer neighborhood; and her relationship with her police officer uncle. Starr and the other characters in this novel are vibrant and fully realized, her life and community are multifaceted and complex. It’s in Starr’s loves of Harry Potter, and her complicated feelings about her half-brother’s other sister, who gets more of his time, but has a less stable family life. It’s in the authentic moments of humor, and in the way hope lives side by side with fear and anger in a story that is so much more than its plot and theme. ©2017 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 13 and older
Age Range: Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13) Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Format: Novel
Subjects: Activism and Resistance African Americans Courage Death and Dying Economic Hardship and Poverty Families Police Violence Racism Resiliency
Diversity subject: Black/African

Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publish Year: 2017
Pages: 444
ISBN: 9780062498533

CCBC Location: Fiction, Thomas

The Hate U Give