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Give Me Some Truth

In 1980, Carson Mastick and his best friend, Lewis Blake, are high school seniors living on the Tuscarora Reservation in upstate New York. Maggi Bokoni, 15, has just moved back to the reservation with her older sister, Marie. Former honor student Lewis paid a heavy price at school for standing up to a white bully years before (the story told in If I Ever Get Out of Here ). His future uncertain, he works cleaning buses for the school district, where Maggi also gets a job and meets Jim, a white grounds supervisor in his early 30s who seems to understand her desire to make art beyond traditional beadwork. Hopeful musician Carson forms a band with reluctant Lewis on bass and Maggi on water drum, intent on winning a competition that could lead to New York. And Marie is in love with one of her former high school teachers from the city. Their stories, individual, intertwined, unpredictable, play out over a series of months in which Carson also mounts a protest against “Custard’s Last Stand,” a restaurant glorifying General Custer that blatantly posts a “No Indians” sign. Though most from the Rez avoid the place, Carson, who can pass as white, wants to confront the racism directly. The nuances and intricacies of these smart, tender characters and their lives unfold in a funny, righteous and illuminating novel. Songs of the Beatles and John Lennon and Yoko Ono provide chapter titles and touchpoints as the teens find solace and inspiration in both music and art. ©2019 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: Art and Artists Economic Hardship and Poverty First/Native Nations Historical Fiction Humor Identity Music and Musicians Racism Tuscarora People
Diversity subject: Indigenous

Publishers: Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic
Publish Year: 2018
Pages: 403
ISBN: 9781338143546

CCBC Location: Fiction, Gansworth

Give Me Some Truth