Cryptocurrency By Matt Chandler

For the reader looking for a very basic understanding of cryptocurrency, this book provides just that. Written at a 6th grade reading level, Cryptocurrency keeps things very simple covering the history of how this relatively new currency came about,  how it works, its advantages and disadvantages,  and how one acquires and uses cryptocurrencies. 

And finally the book addresses the dangers that have emerged with cryptocurrency’s proliferation.

Students who want to learn about digital currencies and investments should pick up Cryptocurrency.  – Claudio Leon

Ain’t Never Not Been Black by Javon Johnson

 Yes!   Your students will want to read this very of-the-moment book of poems by Dr. Javon Johnson, award-winning slam poet and Director of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  Johnson’s writing couldn’t be more accessible,  more honest, or more powerful.  Dense and tight, there is nothing extraneous here.  Highly recommended for proficient readers ages 14 and up. 

Johnson, Javon.  Ain’t Never Not Been Black.  Button Poetry, 2020. ebook.

Click here and scroll down to the third lesson for a compare and contrast lesson plan utilizing Johnson’s “Cuz He’s Black” poem and King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.”

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

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.

The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice by Zak Ibrahim with Jeff Giles

I dare you to read the first four pages of this short book and abandon it.  This is a memoir from the American-born son of a terrorist who is serving a life sentence for plotting the bombing of the World Trade Center.  Current students will not remember the incident which occurred in 1993, but many will relate to the challenges of growing up poor and with an incarcerated parent.  Most readers will, I imagine, marvel at the author’s articulation of the suffering he endured as a result of his father’s choices, his ultimate rejection of the indoctrination of hatred, and his loving embrace of his right to make his own choices about how to be a human being.  Highly recommended for teen and adult book clubs as well as independent reading for students interested in current events and stories relayed by narrators who have grown up with tremendous challenges and overcome adversity.  The Terrorist’s Son winningly combines brevity, heft, and inspiration.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Ebrahim, Zak with Jeff Giles.  The Terrorist’s Son.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.  Print.

A curriculum guide by Pam B. Cole, Associate Dean and Professor of English Education and Literacy, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA, can be found here.  The TED talk Ebrahim gave that led to the writing and publication of this text can be found here.