Heartbreaking, soaring, fulfilling, a deep-dive, this should be canon in high school classrooms and reprinted in pocket-size format for carrying around. -School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
...a notably effective adaptation. Successfully broadens the reach of the original to a younger audience. -Kirkus Reviews
...an incredibly accessible read geared to teens... guided by Stone's energetic narration; kids will definitely see themselves in his [Kendi's] journey. - The Boston Globe
The young person's version gives teens the tools they need to create a more just society and encourages them to undo some of the damage created by generations before them. - The Root
Attention to gender, sexuality, class, and honest self-critique makes for an ambitiously inclusive addition to a growing booklist of youth-oriented racial equity work, but the concluding four c's of changemaking-cogency, compassion, creativity, collaboration-are on full display here in a standout text. -Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
[A] book that illuminate[s] how each of us are gradually drafted into the thinking, the lies and distorted truths which can render a person unable or at least unwilling to challenge the systems and practices which masquerade as normal, as functional and fair. In reality, many of those systems drive and sustain vast inequality along with pervasive belief in group inferiority or superiority. [A] book that seems to want to equip young people living now, in the midst of surround-sound injustice, open and almost gleeful bigotry - in public and in private - with the language and the skills to recognize they too have been drafted. Then it calls on them to decide if, where, and how they will revolt against that system. -Time Magazine
