South Carolina Police Want Angie Thomas' ‘The Hate U Give’ Removed From High School Reading Lists (Oct. 2020)

A South Carolina police union is taking a stand against including Angie Thomas’ award-winning novel The Hate U Give on Wando High School students’ summer reading list, The Guardian reports. The Fraternal Order of Police Tri-County Lodge #3 claims that the book is “almost an indoctrination of distrust of police.”

The Hate U Give, one of two novels on the list that the police disapprove of, is about a teenage girl who witnesses police officers shoot and kill her unarmed best friend. A similar story for the students’ summer reading is Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely’s All American Boys, which is about a teenage boy who is wrongly suspected of shoplifting and then beaten by an officer. Read more here

8 starred reviews - Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best - William C. Morris Award Winner - National Book Award Longlist - Printz Honor Book - Coretta Scott King Honor Book - #1 New York Times Bestseller!

Absolutely riveting! --Jason Reynolds

Stunning. --John Green

This story is necessary. This story is important. --Kirkus (starred review)

Heartbreakingly topical. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A marvel of verisimilitude. --Booklist (starred review)

A powerful, in-your-face novel. --Horn Book (starred review)

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does--or does not--say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Want more of Garden Heights? Catch Maverick and Seven's story in Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas's powerful prequel to The Hate U Give.