The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas (2017)
“A sixteen-year-old Black girl witnesses her unarmed childhood friend shot dead by a cop — and the only weapon she has left is her voice.”
Why This Book Matters
The Hate U Give was the first YA novel to debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and hold that position for an extended period while the political events it described were still unfolding. It remained on the list for over two years. It is the first widely-assigned school novel written in African American Vernacular English as its primary narrative register — not translated into standard English for readability but insisting on AAVE as a literary language deserving of the same serious close-reading attention as Fitzgerald's Jazz Age vernacular or Salinger's mid-century New York teenage voice.
Firsts & Innovations
First YA novel written in African American Vernacular English as primary literary register to receive mainstream critical and commercial success
First novel to use Tupac Shakur's THUG LIFE acronym as an organizing philosophical framework
Pioneered the #OwnVoices category of YA literature — author sharing the racial/cultural background of the protagonist — as a commercial and critical phenomenon
Cultural Impact
One of the most frequently banned and challenged books in American schools since its 2017 publication — routinely ranked in ALA's top 10 most challenged books
Film adaptation (2018) directed by George Tillman Jr., with Amandla Stenberg as Starr
Credited with bringing the Black Lives Matter movement into mainstream YA literature and middle school/high school curriculum
Spawned a generation of #OwnVoices YA novels about race, justice, and community
Assigned in tandem with To Kill a Mockingbird in thousands of schools as a corrective pairing — the white child observer replaced by the Black girl witness
Banned & Challenged
Among the most frequently challenged books in American schools. Common objections: profanity, drug use, anti-police sentiment, and — most tellingly — 'divisiveness.' The 'divisiveness' charge reveals the banning logic: a novel that tells the truth about racism is considered divisive in systems that benefit from not discussing it. Thomas's response: 'If you find it too much for your kids, maybe you should talk to your kids about why.'