{ "item_title" : "The 57 Bus", "item_author" : [" Dashka Slater "], "item_description" : "A NEW YORK TIMES BestsellerStonewall Book Award WinnerA Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)The riveting New York Times bestseller and Stonewall Book Award winner that will make you rethink all you know about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment. Artfully, compassionately, and expertly told, Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus is a must-read nonfiction book that chronicles the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California. Two ends of the same line. Two sides of the same crime. If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a Black teen, lived in the economically challenged flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight. But in The 57 Bus, award-winning journalist Dashka Slater shows that what might at first seem like a simple matter of right and wrong, justice and injustice, victim and criminal, is something more complicated--and far more heartbreaking. More Accolades and Awards for The 57 Bus:A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All TimeYALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults FinalistA Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book WinnerA Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Don't miss Dashka Slater's newest propulsive and thought-provoking nonfiction book, Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed, the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner which National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi hails as powerful, timely, and delicately written.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/37/430/323/0374303231_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "19.99", "online_price" : "19.99", "our_price" : "19.99", "club_price" : "19.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "19.99" } }

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American crime story

In this true story of two teenagers from different sides of Oakland, California, and the bus ride that leaves one of them severely burned and the other facing criminal charges, award-winning journalist and author Dashka Slater chips away at the binaries that frame our understanding of the world. Sasha, a white genderqueer high school student, was wearing a skirt on the bus when Richard, a black student from a struggling neighborhood, set Sasha’s skirt on fire. The genre-bending story that follows is no simple morality tale, as it reveals the tangled complexities of gender, race, crime, justice and hope in America. Bird’s-eye views of Oakland and official statistics are spliced together with instant messages, social media posts and other primary sources. Emphasizing the interconnected nature of humanity, Slater reveals her characters and their web of relationships with deftness and fluidity.

The 57 Bus does what all great books do—reveals our world to us anew.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.