Seventeen-year old Justyce McAllister’s ex-girlfriend, Melo, is too drunk to drive her Benz home at 3am and Justyce knows it. Justyce is arrested by a local police officer while attempting to save Melo from her inebriated self. The incident shades Justyce’s evolving perceptions of his economically-advantaged peers at the boarding school he attends on scholarship. Justyce decides to to process his thoughts in letters he writes to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wondering what the late, great activist would have done in his shoes and in this cultural and historical moment, which has given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Plot twists abound and recommend this to fans of Sitomer’s Caged Warrior. Narrative shifts through genre and perspective, as well as the topical content, invite comparisons to How It Went Down , The Hate U Give, and Tears of a Tiger. Highly recommended for independent reading for older middle school readers and up. Book clubs may enjoy discussing this title as well. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber
Expected release date: October 17th, 2017. The text reviewed was an Advanced Readers' Copy.
Stone, Nic. Dear Martin. New York: Random House, 2017. Print.
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