![]() ![]() She’s a heroine on par with any other, and I’m excited to see where the story takes her next. Only people playing the victim while others fight to get by. We so often get images of Blacks as victims, waiting to be saved-there are no victims in this book. ![]() They, and the other Black characters in the book, demonstrate both a deadly practicality in the face of white savagery, and a cunning, proactive ability to manipulate white prejudice to survive. One of the strongest threads of the book is about how these three Black young adults use the perceptions of the white people around them to their advantage. The unfurling of Katherine’s backstory, the glimpses of Jane’s mother and backstory through the letters at the start of each chapter, even Red Jack and his soft spot for his sisterthey all lent a depth to the material and got you invested in a hopeful outcomeor as hopeful as. I would love to see Dread Nation taught in schools along with Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, juxtaposing who the two stories center and how they upend the social hierarchy in different ways. I’ve spouted a lot of praise of Jane, but truly many of the characters in Dread Nation caught my attention. ![]() Dread Nation is suitable for most readers, definitely down into the mid-teen age ranges, yet the themes around slavery, freedom, and self-determination work well for adults too. ![]()
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