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DEAR MARTIN

by Nic Stone ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2017

Though constrained, the work nevertheless stands apart in a literature that too often finds it hard to look hard truths in...

In this roller-coaster ride of a debut, the author summons the popular legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. to respond to the recent tragic violence befalling unarmed black men and boys.

Seventeen-year-old black high school senior Justyce McAllister, a full-scholarship student at the virtually all-white Braselton Prep, is the focus. After a bloody run-in with the police when they take his good deed for malice, Justyce seeks meaning in a series of letters with his “homie” Dr. King. He writes, “I thought if I made sure to be an upstanding member of society, I’d be exempt from the stuff THOSE black guys deal with, you know?” While he’s ranked fourth in his graduating class and well-positioned for the Ivy League, Justyce is coming to terms with the fact that there’s not as much that separates him from “THOSE black guys” as he’d like to believe. Despite this, Stone seems to position Justyce and his best friend as the decidedly well-mannered black children who are deserving of readers’ sympathies. They are not those gangsters that can be found in Justyce’s neighborhood. There’s nuance to be found for sure, but not enough to upset the dominant narrative. What if they weren’t the successful kids? While the novel intentionally leaves more questions than it attempts to answer, there are layers that still remain between the lines.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-101-93949-9

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION

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by Ibram X. Kendi & Nic Stone

by Dhonielle Clayton , Tiffany D. Jackson , Nic Stone , Angie Thomas , Ashley Woodfolk & Nicola Yoon

IF HE HAD BEEN WITH ME

by Laura Nowlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2013

There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.

The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.

Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.

Pub Date: April 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

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by Laura Nowlin

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SEEN & HEARD

IF ONLY I HAD TOLD HER

by Laura Nowlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.

In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me , three characters tell their sides of the story.

Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781728276229

Page Count: 416

Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE

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Publisher’s description

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.

Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up— way  up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it’s Justyce who is under attack.

Amanda’s thoughts

This book is a powerful and incredibly nuanced look at racism, police brutality, privilege, profiling, and so much more. The thing I kept writing in my notes was “it’s all so very complicated.” And, of course, it IS—you don’t need to know anything about the plot specifics to look at the list of topics it touches on to know it’s complicated. But Justyce’s thoughts, his experiences, the moves he makes/considers/rejects are all so VERY complex. I was completely wrapped up in this story, which I read in one sitting. There is not just one “incident” in this book. Justyce is handcuffed and assaulted by a cop when he’s seen helping his drunk ex-girlfriend into her car in the middle of the night. He’s seen an endless stream of stories in the news about unarmed black kids wrongfully arrested and/or killed, but he never thought it would happen to him. As Justyce says, he’s not “threatening” like some of the kids he’s seen on the news can be/look (his thoughts, not mine). It’s an eye-opening experience, one that prompts him to begin writing letters to Dr. King as he tries to work out his thoughts and works to begin to really see more of what is going on all around him.

There are other incidents that change the way Justyce sees things: his best friend Manny’s cousin, Quan, is charged with murdering a cop. His classmate Jared (and others, but Jared is the worst) spouts off endlessly about how color-blind America is and how everyone here is equal. There are intense classroom conversations about race, police, equality, and privilege that lead Justyce to some new thoughts and to see his peers in different lights. Justyce seeks solutions and ways to handle things like classmates seeing nothing wrong with wearing blackface, dressing up as KKK members for Halloween, and completely being oblivious to their own privilege. Justyce grapples with the trauma of his profiling arrest through all of this—it’s never far from his mind. His best times are with Manny or with Sarah-Jane, who is Jewish and his debate partner (and who he is totally crushing on—but, like everything else, that’s complicated).

The story really ramps up when, partway through, Manny and Justyce encounter an angry, racist, off-duty cop while blaring their music at a stoplight. What happens here, and after, is heartbreaking, profoundly moving, and often incredibly infuriating. This stunning debut is captivating, raw, and immensely readable. I would love to see this used in classrooms or book clubs and hear the conversations it would generate. This important and thoughtful look at racism, and many issues stemming from and surrounding racism, should be in all teen collections.  A must-read. I can’t wait to see what else Nic Stone writes. 

ISBN-13: 9781101939499 Publisher: Random House Children’s Books Publication date: 10/17/2017

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November 7, 2017 by Amanda MacGregor

Book Review: Dear Martin by Nic Stone

November 7, 2017 by Amanda MacGregor   Leave a Comment

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Publisher’s description

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.

Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up— way  up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it’s Justyce who is under attack.

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Amanda’s thoughts

This book is a powerful and incredibly nuanced look at racism, police brutality, privilege, profiling, and so much more. The thing I kept writing in my notes was “it’s all so very complicated.” And, of course, it IS—you don’t need to know anything about the plot specifics to look at the list of topics it touches on to know it’s complicated. But Justyce’s thoughts, his experiences, the moves he makes/considers/rejects are all so VERY complex. I was completely wrapped up in this story, which I read in one sitting. There is not just one “incident” in this book. Justyce is handcuffed and assaulted by a cop when he’s seen helping his drunk ex-girlfriend into her car in the middle of the night. He’s seen an endless stream of stories in the news about unarmed black kids wrongfully arrested and/or killed, but he never thought it would happen to him. As Justyce says, he’s not “threatening” like some of the kids he’s seen on the news can be/look (his thoughts, not mine). It’s an eye-opening experience, one that prompts him to begin writing letters to Dr. King as he tries to work out his thoughts and works to begin to really see more of what is going on all around him.

There are other incidents that change the way Justyce sees things: his best friend Manny’s cousin, Quan, is charged with murdering a cop. His classmate Jared (and others, but Jared is the worst) spouts off endlessly about how color-blind America is and how everyone here is equal. There are intense classroom conversations about race, police, equality, and privilege that lead Justyce to some new thoughts and to see his peers in different lights. Justyce seeks solutions and ways to handle things like classmates seeing nothing wrong with wearing blackface, dressing up as KKK members for Halloween, and completely being oblivious to their own privilege. Justyce grapples with the trauma of his profiling arrest through all of this—it’s never far from his mind. His best times are with Manny or with Sarah-Jane, who is Jewish and his debate partner (and who he is totally crushing on—but, like everything else, that’s complicated).

The story really ramps up when, partway through, Manny and Justyce encounter an angry, racist, off-duty cop while blaring their music at a stoplight. What happens here, and after, is heartbreaking, profoundly moving, and often incredibly infuriating. This stunning debut is captivating, raw, and immensely readable. I would love to see this used in classrooms or book clubs and hear the conversations it would generate. This important and thoughtful look at racism, and many issues stemming from and surrounding racism, should be in all teen collections.  A must-read. I can’t wait to see what else Nic Stone writes. 

ISBN-13: 9781101939499 Publisher: Random House Children’s Books Publication date: 10/17/2017

Filed under: Book Reviews

About Amanda MacGregor

Amanda MacGregor works in an elementary library, loves dogs, and can be found on Twitter @CiteSomething.

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Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, dear martin.

- Click here to read Dylan C.'s review.

Justyce McAllister is at the top of his class at Braselton Prep, a predominantly white school. Although Justyce comes from a rougher neighborhood, he has never had trouble fitting in at Braselton, and even when things get tough, he has his best friend, Manny, by his side.

Nic Stone wastes no time diving into the meat of DEAR MARTIN; in the very first chapter, Justyce is arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and quickly shown the injustices of the law. Justyce is an informed young man and the situation is not unheard of for him, but he is shocked that a straight-A, Yale-bound student like himself could be arrested. After all, he's nothing like the kids he grew up with!

His eyes newly opened to the world around him, Justyce begins to notice the microaggressions occurring around him --- the racist jokes his classmates make and the way they treat people of color. None of them are what one would call openly racist, but it is clear that there is something systemic at work that influences their choices and actions.

"Heartfelt, crisp and informative, Nic Stone's DEAR MARTIN is a truly magnificent and life-changing read."

Struggling to adapt to his new worldview, Justyce begins writing letters to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In these letters, he remarks on the similarities between his time period and MLK's, despite the many years that have passed. Poetic and lyrical, these letters are the heart of Stone's story, as they allow Justyce to ask the questions that a young African American male cannot ask out loud, lest he be targeted by others as a protester or rioter.

Although I enjoyed Justyce and his story, the true star of the novel, for me, was Manny, Justyce's best friend. Manny is one of the richest young men in school, but he is also African American, which presents an interesting dichotomy in his personality. He fits in better with his rich classmates than he does with the boys of Justyce's neighborhood, certainly, but he will never truly be "one of them."

Justyce and Manny's differences come to a head when they are out venting their frustrations with some loud music in Manny's car. The two cross paths with an off-duty white cop, shots ring out and one of them ends up dead. Of course, it is not the police officer who is put on trial, but the boys themselves --- were they hoodlums, thugs or teenage boys? Can an African American teen ever really be one or the other in the eyes of the racist media?

Heartfelt, crisp and informative, Nic Stone's DEAR MARTIN is a truly magnificent and life-changing read. With characters that read like real people and situations that ring painfully true, DEAR MARTIN is not only for young African American teens in need of a voice, but for their privileged counterparts, who have much to learn about the world around them. I trust that this book will become a classic in no time and that readers decades from now will read this book and wonder how the world could have turned so dark.

Nic Stone is an astute and careful writer, and I know that we will be seeing much more from her in the years to come.

Review #2 by Dylan C., Teen Board Member:

DEAR MARTIN follows Justyce McAllister, who is at the top of his class at Braselton Prep, and is set to go to Yale next fall. His whole future seems to come to a standing point when a police officer puts him in handcuffs. Even though he’s soon released without any charges, he can’t stop lingering on that very moment. When Justyce goes driving with Manny, his best friend, they come in contact with a off-duty white cop --- where shots are fired, and Justyce is the one who is under attack in the media fallout.

A lot of this book also consists of our main character, Justyce, writing letters to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I really did love the parallels between King’s life and Justyce’s life. While everything that happened with King seems like forever ago and like it shouldn’t be happening all of these years in the future, Justyce is writing to him and telling him about all of the similar things that happened in Martin’s time, that are still happening today. But I wasn’t a fan of the format. I’ve never really liked books told in a letter type of format, so I wasn’t able to connect with these portions of the book.

I’m so very disheartened to say that I didn’t love this book. DEAR MARTIN was my most anticipated book of the second half of the year, but unfortunately, I couldn’t connect with it for the life of me. Right from the start, the third person point of view rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read a lot of books in this point of view, but it took me out of the story, which led to me taking almost a week to read a 200 page book, and also it prevented me from connecting with Justyce because I, as a reader, wasn’t in his head.

Another thing about this book that I didn’t like was the dialogue. The dialogue itself wasn’t the problem at all, it was just how it was presented. The dialogue in this book is written in a script format. While this might not bother anyone else, I have never read a book written in this type of format, and so I found myself subconsciously skimming over the dialogue because I honestly just wanted to get it over with.

What I DID like was the story that Nic Stone was trying to tell. Even though this particular story is labeled as fiction, it doesn’t mean that situations like this have never happened in our society today. Stone does a great job of representing the African American community and the trials and tribulations that they go through on a day by day basis.

I realize that to those reading this review, it probably sounds like I hated this book, but I didn’t. It just wasn’t for me. I would still recommend this for fans of THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas, ALL AMERICAN BOYS by Jason Reynolds and THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER by Stephen Chbosky.

Reviewed by Audrey Slater and Dylan C., Teen Board Member on October 16, 2017

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

• Publication Date: September 4, 2018
• Genres: Fiction , Young Adult 13+
• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Ember
• ISBN-10: 1101939524
• ISBN-13: 9781101939529

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‘Dear Martin’ will make most readers uncomfortable — and it should

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Her bestselling debut Dear Martin was born in response to a specific political narrative blasted across news media whenever an unarmed black teenager is killed: Maybe we wouldn’t see so many young black men slain by police if these kids weren’t in the wrong place, wearing the wrong clothes at the wrong time.

Using highly empathetic young characters, Stone directly combats that narrative to show it as unhelpful at best, and harmful at worst.

“My goal was to dismantle the myth that if you are doing everything right, nothing bad will happen to you,” she says. “Every time a black boy is killed you see that argument come out all over the place — there are so many reasons (given) that a black boy’s death is his own fault and often those reasons are the notions of stereotypes.”

Enter Justyce McAllister, a 17-year-old African American honor student and debate team captain on his way to Yale. Justyce plays by the rules that his Atlanta private school — full of privilege, opportunity, wealth and mostly people who don’t look like him — and society set for him, but the finish line keeps getting pushed further away.

After being profiled and falsely arrested, Justyce embarks on a social experiment to emulate his hero, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Writing letters to King, Justyce explores and analyzes the racism he faces daily through the lens of civil disobedience asking himself in diary entries, “What would Martin do?”

Justyce is particularly compelled by King’s definition of integration, which throughout the book, he comes to understand as more than just the elimination of segregation. If true integration by King’s own definition is “inter-group and interpersonal living,” Justyce can’t help but wonder why more people in school don’t look like him.

He still faces daily discrimination by classmates who claim to be “colorblind.” He still feels like he doesn’t belong in either of his separate worlds as he attempts to straddle both — he knows he’s seen as a “sellout” to his childhood friends and neighbors and as “the token black kid” and affirmative action beneficiary in the eyes of his mostly white classmates. And worst of all (*story spoiler*), he now lives with the permanent echo of police brutality that left him with a gunshot wound and killed his best friend.

No matter what rules Justyce plays by, he can’t win.

This book is for everyone. It’s for teachers who want a book palatable to young people who both have and have not faced discrimination. It’s for young people who feel like they don’t belong. It’s for adults and teenagers alike who grapple with what seems like never-ending police brutality and wonder how it keeps getting excused away in our political narrative. It’s for those who relate to the police perspective, but want to understand a young black man’s experience, too.

Stone puts us smack in the shoes of a teenager who — on top of dealing with normal teen stuff like young love, changing and challenged friendships, grades and college applications — knows what it’s like to face the pistol of a police officer and live to tell about it. Through Justyce, Stone illuminates the all-too-common aftermath narrative that is largely spun by people who weren’t there and likely never will be.

And for the forthcoming sequel, Stone plans to focus on the flip side of the story — the kid who doesn’t get access to private school education and takes a different path. “I want to look at that kid as well because they are just as worthy and just as needing, if not more needing, of our empathy and our compassion as the kid who’s doing well,” she said. “And honestly, books are the best way for people to have the opportunity to experience the life of someone else.”

Nic Stone will appear on the panel, “Hope (Nation) and Other Four-Letter Words,” at 10:45 a.m. at Galloway Sanctuary. Other panelists include Rose Brock, Becky Albertalli, Julie Murphy, Angie Thomas and Nicola Yoon.

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This <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org/2018/08/13/dear-martin-book-review/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://mississippitoday.org">Mississippi Today</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/mississippitoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/MT_icon-logo-favicon-1.png?fit=134%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://mississippitoday.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=178268&amp;ga4=G-VSX4B701MS" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

Erica Hensley

Erica Hensley, a native of Atlanta, has been working as an investigative reporter focusing on public health for Mississippi Today since May 2018. She is a Knight Foundation fellow for our newsroom’s collaboration with local TV station WLBT and curates The Inform[H]er, our monthly women and girls’ newsletter. She is the 2019 recipient of the Doris O'Donnell Innovations in Investigative Journalism Fellowship. Erica received a bachelor’s in print journalism and political science from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and a master’s in health and medical journalism from the University of Georgia Grady College for Journalism and Mass Communication.

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4 Young Adult Crossover Novels

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By Marie Myung-Ok Lee

• Published Dec. 30, 2020 Updated Jan. 4, 2021

DEAR JUSTYCE By Nic Stone 288 pp. Crown. $18.99.

In Stone’s 2017 book “Dear Martin,” Justyce McAllister, a Black student attending a fancy boarding school, writes letters to Martin Luther King Jr. as a diarylike way to process the mixed and often heartbreaking results of his attempts to put Dr. King’s words into practice. After it was published , Stone heard from a pair of readers who hoped in her next novel she’d write about people “not like Justyce”: “We don’t go to good colleges. … Honestly, we don’t even know if we’ll live past the age of 18.”

This time Justyce is the recipient , of actual letters, from Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr. (“Quan” for short), a Black teenager incarcerated after being accused of killing a police officer.

The story spools back to the first meeting of the two academically gifted elementary school students, who live only a block apart, taking temporary refuge in a playground rocket ship.

In Quan’s teenage years, the chaos of his home life and the weight of the racism he faces at his school overwhelm him and the younger half siblings in his care. With his father in prison and his mother too traumatized by an abusive boyfriend to give Quan much guidance, he seeks attention through gang life — which leads to the shooting.

From the detention center, he makes contact again with Justyce, who has matriculated at Yale and left Quan his “Dear Martin” letters.

As the legal case against Quan proceeds, Stone’s short chapters peppered with play-script-style dialogue ramp up the pace, like a thriller. But ultimately, this raw, urgent illumination of our broken juvenile justice system is a touching tale of family and friendship.

THE ENIGMA GAME By Elizabeth Wein 448 pp. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. $18.99.

Even if you’re not one for “war stories,” you’ll likely get caught up in the breathless thrill-ride of Wein’s newest World War II novel.

Like “Dear Justyce,” “The Enigma Game” includes characters from the author’s previous books — it takes place between the events of “The Pearl Thief” and “Code Name Verity” — but stands on its own.

Jamie Beaufort-Stuart , a British flying ace; Ellen McEwen, a volunteer transport driver; and Louisa Adair, a 15-year-old half-Jamaican English orphan hired sight unseen (because of her proper British accent) to care for the elderly Frau von Arnim, a newly released German P.O.W., converge at a pub near a Royal Air Force base in Windyedge, Scotland, at the same time that a mysterious German plane lands on the base. The pilot billets at the pub, keeps everyone at bay with a pistol and flies away, leaving clues that lead Louisa to a hidden code-breaking device — the Enigma machine — which, with Frau von Arnim’s translating help, may turn the tide of the war.

At more than 400 pages, this novel looks intimidating, but its twisty plot, multivoiced narration and poetic prose make it fly by. It’s an illuminating historical read and a realistic depiction of the costs of war. It also highlights the contributions of women like Ellen, who turns out to be a Scottish Traveler, a despised minority. War, whose necessities often provide opportunities for women, allows Ellen to be seen first and foremost as a British subject, whereas Louisa, despite the perfect British accent, is inevitably and unfairly judged by her race. An author’s note details the interplay of fact and fiction, and divulges the real-life inspirations for the character of Louisa.

SUPER FAKE LOVE SONG By David Yoon 368 pp. Putnam. $18.99.

The author of “Frankly in Love” introduces readers to Sunny Dae, a self-proclaimed Dungeons & Dragons nerd who needs to impress the beautiful new girl, Cirrus Soh, right now . When her Korean parents make a social call on his Korean parents, what can he do but go along with her assumption that his cool older brother’s abandoned metalhead bedroom is his? Soon he’s wearing his brother’s clothes to school. When Sunny pretends he’s in a band, Cirrus becomes the fake group’s No. 1 fan. Sunny then has to rope in his D & D friends Milo and Jamal to extend the charade, going so far as to start an actual fake band.

The fun of this engrossing read (I found myself laughing out loud and admiring Yoon’s wordplay) is that underneath the slapstick lies a finely nuanced meditation on how we perform as ourselves. The real surprise is how many of our perceived shortcomings are part of a self-imposed narrative. Sunny has spent so much of his life idolizing his brother, it’s unfathomable to him that this now-grown man could envy the loyalty of his D & D brothers in arms, or that Cirrus might like him without a concrete reason, or that the big football player bully might want to play D & D himself.

The fake band eventually gets drafted into a high-profile talent show. During the performance, Sunny finds he likes the headiness of hero worship and understands how his brother feels, while it becomes harder to differentiate his real and fake selves. Through romance and failed romance, passion projects and fake passion projects, Sunny and the people around him learn that being true to yourself, once you figure out what the heck that is, is the most important thing of all.

HOW IT ALL BLEW UP By Arvin Ahmadi 288 pp. Viking. $17.99.

The Iranian-American teenager Amir Azadi is new to his school and knows he is gay. He just needs to make it through his senior year, get into a good college and figure out how to eventually come out to his parents, who are dreaming of a future for him that includes a wife and children. His year starts promisingly, with an unexpected clandestine relationship with a handsome football player who also isn’t out. But soon Amir is being blackmailed by bullies and gets rejected by his top-choice schools.

Ahmadi (“Girl Gone Viral”) opens the novel in Interrogation Room 37 of an international airport, where Amir and his family have been pulled off a flight for causing an “incident.” “Memento”-like, the narrative moves backward in time to show us how they got there — from the perspectives of Amir, his father, his mother and his sister as they’re questioned by Customs and Border Protection officers. We learn that when Amir couldn’t quite scrape up enough money to pay the blackmail he panicked about being outed at graduation, took the cash he had made (from editing Wikipedia pages) and randomly flew to New York, then Rome, where he envisioned a freer life. To his family, he was a missing person. When they found him and tried to bring him back, repressed emotions kindled by Islamophobia led to an explosion.

Ahmadi portrays the treatment of sexual desire in various cultures with frank and often funny insight. And Amir is an immediately likable character with whom we empathize. He shows us how lies lead to more lies, how not being honest with oneself and others causes the dread and guilt to grow until they erupt. I could not put this book down.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of five young adult novels. Her first, “Finding My Voice,” was reissued last month.

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Exploring Realities and Resilience: ‘Dear Martin’ Book Review

Book Overview “Dear Martin” by Nic Stone is about a boy named Justice who lives in Atlanta. One night, he visits his ex-best friend who is drunk. During this encounter, a police officer approaches Justice and his ex-girlfriend, who is both white and Black. The officer is suspicious because it’s late at night, and Justice is talking to a white girl. Following the encounter, Justice is instructed to call someone, and he calls his mom and the girl’s parents. Despite his cooperation, the officer insists on handcuffing him, causing shock and confusion.

Evaluation One aspect of the book that I liked was how it depicted the reactions of various cops, especially when people were unjustly arrested or killed. The book demonstrated that not all cops agreed with the actions of their colleagues, and this felt realistic. While it was a tough choice not to arrest some individuals, it portrayed the harsh realities of life, including racism and the persistence of injustice.

Book Impression I genuinely enjoyed the book. It felt very realistic, even when tragic events occurred. The book made me reflect on whether these incidents were based on true stories, as it was so authentic and true to life. The authors seemed well-researched and skillfully wove real-life experiences into the story.

Characters Justice is the main character, and he is determined to fight for justice even when he ends up in challenging situations. Justice is 17 years old, soon to be 18, and aspires to attend college. He is a good student and remained resolute despite the hardships he encountered.

Another character is his best friend, who sadly did not escape arrest, unlike Justice. Justice’s relationship with his best friend was significant, and he tried to prevent many people, including her, from being arrested. They had been close friends since childhood.

Theme and Takeaways The book primarily addresses issues like racial violence and people getting killed. It encourages us to stand up and make a difference. Despite adversity, the story emphasizes resilience. The book illustrates how standing up and protesting against injustice can make a difference, even when the odds are stacked against you.

Target Audience The book is for everyone, but it appears to be primarily targeted at younger audiences. It seeks to inspire the next generation to take action and work against injustice.

Personal Connection I have seen instances of racism over the years, and even though I personally haven’t experienced it, it saddens me to see people subjected to discrimination and name-calling. For instance, as a child, someone once refused to play with me because of my race. It’s a hurtful experience that my mom still remembers. The book’s themes resonated with me because, as someone with a white mom, I’ve grown up in a diverse environment. While our generation has made strides against racism, it’s crucial to embrace diversity and accept everyone for who they are. Reading this book further emphasized the importance of unity and equality to me.

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Dear Martin Hardcover – October 17, 2017

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Book 1 of 2 Dear Martin Series
• Print length 224 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Crown Books for Young Readers
• Publication date October 17, 2017
• Grade level 9 - 12
• Reading age 14 - 17 years
• Dimensions 5.63 x 0.83 x 8.5 inches
• ISBN-10 1101939494
• ISBN-13 978-1101939499
• Lexile measure HL720L
• See all details

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From school library journal, about the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown Books for Young Readers; First Edition (October 17, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1101939494
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1101939499
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14 - 17 years
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ HL720L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 9 - 12
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.63 x 0.83 x 8.5 inches
• #126 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction on Social & Family Violence (Books)
• #253 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction on Prejudice & Racism
• #397 in Censorship & Politics

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About the author

Nic Stone was born and raised in a suburb of Atlanta, GA, and the only thing she loves more than an adventure is a good story about one. After graduating from Spelman College, she worked extensively in teen mentoring and lived in Israel for a few years before returning to the US to write full-time. Growing up with a wide range of cultures, religions, and backgrounds, Stone strives to bring these diverse voices and stories to her work.

You can find her goofing off and/or fangirling over her adorable little family on most social media platforms as @getnicced, or on her website: www.nicstone.info.

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Utopia State of Mind

Book Reviews

Review: Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Dear Martin is one of those books I can’t believe I didn’t pick up sooner. I heard all the hype and somehow it just slipped deeper into my TBR, but as I was scrolling Scribd I found it and listened and I am so remorseful I didn’t read this sooner.

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it’s Justyce who is under attack.

Dear Martin is powerful, gripping, and heart wrenching. Reeling from the loss of his best friend, Justyce is thrown headfirst into a journey where he must question his identity, how he handles the racism, and how he will move on from his best friend’s death. It’s a book that starts before the death of his best friend as Justyce writes letters to Dr. Martin Luther King.

Dear Martin is gripping and incredibly necessary. It’s a shorter book than you might be expecting, but it brings up issues of dealing with the racism of our peers, within our family, and not letting it change who we are.

So many conversations from Dear Martin could have been ripped out of my past. While I’m not Black, I have heard so many conversations about affirmative action, color blindness, and stereotypes. I’m not at all equating our experiences, it was just a way I related and thought, “Yes, I’ve also had these conversations”.

It’s about racism, racial profiling, police brutality, and more. I feel like Dear Martin should be required reading because of the fantastic and insightful ways Stone brings up these issues, as well as the counter arguments.

I could not stop listening to Dear Martin, even when my heart ached for Justyce and that feeling of not fitting in anywhere and the immense rage of injustice. 

Find Dear Martin on Goodreads , Amazon , Indiebound   & The Book Depository .

What are books you heard a lot of hype about but haven’t picked up yet? I haven’t read any Holly Black either…

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Social Justice Books

Critically reviewed selection of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators.

Dear Martin

Reviewed by  zetta elliott.

When a friend asked me last fall to address the problems she found in  Dear Martin , I hedged. Few people thanked me for pointing out the issues I had with  All American Boys  (though many were quick to praise Jason Reynolds for his “gracious” response), and I didn’t want to become known for “targeting” or “picking on” Black authors when so few of us manage to get published. But in the end, I decided something needed to be said because I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in publishing: novels by Black authors about police violence against Black boys where White girls take center stage.

I decided not to blog about  The Truth of Right Now  (2017) by Kara Lee Corthron when I read it last fall. Another friend urged me to read that YA novel; he found the writing superior to  The Hate U Give (2017) and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t garnering equal attention. It’s a very different kind of story; a White girl attempts suicide after being raped and exploited by a White male teacher at her high school; when Lily meets Dari, an artistic Black boy with an abusive father and absent mother, her outlook on life changes and she invites him to move in with her and her mother.

Dari then becomes the object of desire for both mother and daughter, and the novel concludes with an ugly confrontation in the street with police. When Lily denies knowing Dari, he is brutalized by police and hospitalized. It was clear to me why this novel didn’t achieve the blockbuster status of THUG, and I wondered why such a strong writer would choose to tell this particular story. I support the right of artists to create freely, but with so few Black female YA authors getting published it’s frustrating to see several choosing to put the focus on Black boys and White girls. Where does that leave Black girls? Continue reading .

Publisher's Synopsis: "Raw and gripping." -JASON REYNOLDS, New York Times bestselling coauthor of All American Boys "A must-read!" -ANGIE THOMAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate You Give Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone joins industry giants Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers as she boldly tackles American race relations in this stunning New York Times bestselling debut, a William C. Morris Award Finalist. Justyce McAllister is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend--but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. Despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up-- way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack. "Vivid and powerful." -Booklist, Starred Review "A visceral portrait of a young man reckoning with the ugly, persistent violence of social injustice." - Publishers Weekly

December 13, 2019 at 12:56 PM

i like this book soooooo muchhhhhh…

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West Side Story

Book review: “Dear Martin” is powerful and enthralling

Nic Stone’s enthralling debut novel, “Dear Martin,” gives a powerful and honest look at racism in America.

Edward Keen , Arts Editor | September 18, 2018

The original cover for “Dear Martin.”

“Dear Martin,” written by Nic Stone , is a brutally honest, captivating novel that expertly discusses and portrays racism in our society. Although the novel is Stone’s very first, I found myself thoroughly impressed by the way she simultaneously skirted through themes of racism and ethnic profiling while also creating raw, believable characters. Through a blend of classroom discussions, unsparing accounts of racism and well-crafted dialogue, Stone created a novel that not only gives off a clear message but also shows an accurate portrayal of the life of a black teenager in this day and age.

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The book focuses on Justyce McAllister, who has just about everything going right in his life. He goes to an elite school, he’s a high-ranking member of the debate club and will attend Yale University. One day, an incident in which he is brutalized by a cop causes him to question racial issues in today’s society. He decides to start a project called “Dear Martin” where he writes a series of letters to the deceased Martin Luther King Jr . As he is tested by classmates and society, he only has one question: what would Martin do?

From the very beginning, Justyce proved himself to be an empathetic protagonist. There was a clear thought process behind every action he made, especially in times when he was subject to a great number of dilemmas over what choice he should make and how it would affect himself and those in his surroundings. He never refrained from speaking questions, and was direct with his thought processes. Despite any preconceived notions about his race, Justyce always did what he felt was not necessarily always the right choice but the best he could come up with.

In addition, the story’s further cast of characters are all well-written and thought out; each character feels like a real person from society, and they are all reflective of the attitudes people of all walks of life contain today. The dialogue and interactions between the novel’s characters felt natural, especially flowing well in the context of the story.

One character that stood out, in particular, was Manny. His character is practically the complete opposite of Justyce: he was born into a rich family, he generally refrained from hanging out with people of his own race and he didn’t bother questioning issues;  he always complied when his peers made racist remarks. However, as the story progresses, his character opens his eyes to problems in today’s society and begins to see the injustices clearly. The immense character development made Manny one of the most memorable characters and shows that even the most reluctant people can change.

The book’s chapters alternate between detailing Justyce’s encounters and his letters written to Martin Luther King. I particularly enjoyed reading the letters for multiple reasons. For one, they were able to draw parallels between what is going on today and how it is not that different than what happened during MLK’s time . Even though years upon years have passed, the letters clearly show how the issues that should’ve been resolved a long time ago still occur time and time again today.

These letters also add to Justyce’s character. The story portion of the novel is written in a third-person perspective, so while you get to learn and understand Justyce, you can’t get too much of a feel of his inner thoughts and feelings that he doesn’t portray to others. The letters, however, fill in gaps in readers’ understanding. 

The writing itself was generally another shining point. Stone’s writing style is straightforward and concise, describing everything as it is without overcomplicating the plot. It is written in a way that allows all kinds of audiences to understand it, even if you don’t consider yourself an avid reader. Whether she is writing a classroom discussion, or a gripping scene of slander, Stone handles all the content of the story in a thoughtful manner that never ceases to impress. The only complaint is the present-tense method in which she pens the non-letter scenes, which can disrupt the otherwise perfect flow of the story.

Stone handles all the content of the story in a thoughtful manner that never ceases to impress

“Dear Martin” gives a thought-provoking look at society, and never shies away from demonstrating the issues that still exist today. I think that this book is a must-read for everyone because of its powerful messages and demonstrations; while the book specifically talks about racism in America, its themes can also apply to many other injustices in the world. With “Dear Martin,” Stone is looking to have a bright future in writing ahead of her in the literary field. 

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Edward Keen is a senior and this is his second year on staff, where he is Arts Editor. In his free time, he enjoys reading.

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Dear justyce: dear martin, book 2, common sense media reviewers.

Moving story of teen caught in unfair justice system.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

The Author's Note mentions the "school-to-prison p

Everyone needs someone who believes in them no mat

Quan is a good role model for communication, integ

A young boy witnesses the brutal arrest of his fat

Mention of seeing a couple kiss. Several mentions

"Bulls---tin'," "s--t," "duck-ass," "a--hole," "ni

A couple of snack, clothing, and book/movie franch

Teens vape marijuana because they've sworn off blu

Parents need to know that Nic Stone's Dear Justyce is a sequel to her popular Dear Martin . The story revolves around a couple of incidents of police brutality and excessive force that echo several real-life tragic deaths, so it might trigger powerful emotions in readers who reacted strongly to those…

Educational Value

The Author's Note mentions the "school-to-prison pipeline" and encourages readers to look it up. It also clarifies some differences in the way the legal system works in real life vs. the way it was depicted in the story. And it encourages readers to look for ways they can make a positive impact on somone who may be struggling. The story itself addresses lots of important issues surrounding the effects that lack of support and opportunity have on low-income families, and especially on Black children and young men.

Positive Messages

Everyone needs someone who believes in them no matter what. Everyone also needs positive role models who can offer guidance and demonstrate what can be achieved and what a happy, healthy life looks like. Children need guidance from people who have high expectations and push them to achieve what they don't think they can, or to see possibilities they don't know exist for themselves. The Author's Note tells readers that each one is important and has a lot to contribute no matter how they feel, and not to let anyone else convince them otherwise.

Positive Role Models

Quan is a good role model for communication, integrity, perseverance, and self-control. From a young age he tries to cope with uncertainty and post-traumatic stress by staying focused on his siblings and schoolwork. When he reconnects with an old friend they write letters to each other and Quan is able to open up about his feelings. Justyce is a good role model for high academic achievement, for being a loyal and supportive friend, and for finding a practical way to make a real difference in Quan's life. There are plenty of negative role models, and it's very clear they're not examples to follow. Eventually Quan is helped by a team of people who believe him, believe in him, and care about what happens to him, and help the judicial system start working in Quan's favor. In terems of representation, the main characters are strong role models and positive representations of African Americans in different circumstances. A couple of characters are gay, and Quan has a positive experience staying with a same-sex couple of Black men.

Violence & Scariness

A young boy witnesses the brutal arrest of his father during which his father is knocked unconscious by a police officer and the boy is grabbed, dragged, and squeezed so tightly he can't breathe. A confrontation with police ends in shots being fired and a police officer being killed. Domestic violence is implied from sounds of violence and bruises. A past incident is remembered of being thrown across a room into a table. Mention that a woman's boyfriend takes out his anger on her. A hazing ritual isn't narrated but mentions that the victim was left with a black eye, sprained wrist, and bruised ribs.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Mention of seeing a couple kiss. Several mentions of how attractive a woman is. Mention of seeing "two dudes crazy in love" and getting used to the idea. Seeing a used condom in a playground is implied.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"Bulls---tin'," "s--t," "duck-ass," "a--hole," "nigga," "damn," "douchenozzle," "douchewangle," "crap," "WASP," and graffiti that reads, "F-U-K-C."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A couple of snack, clothing, and book/movie franchises establish character.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Teens vape marijuana because they've sworn off blunts as carcinogenic. Mention that an 11-year-old was arrested for possession of alcohol. A teen has Jamaican ginger beer, not always alcoholic but mentions he starts to feel relaxed. Quan's father sells marijuana for a living. A neighbor says ganja is good for her glaucoma. A friend had a dime bag of marijuana. A character is mentioned holding a vape pen. Glass pipes and bowls are seen in a convenience store. A hypodermic needle is picked up in a playground. A criminal organization has a no-hard-drugs policy including "lean" (a drink mix that includes codeine), pills, and opioids.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Nic Stone 's Dear Justyce is a sequel to her popular Dear Martin . The story revolves around a couple of incidents of police brutality and excessive force that echo several real-life tragic deaths, so it might trigger powerful emotions in readers who reacted strongly to those. One involves a teen witnessing a hostile confrontation with police that ends in a shooting, and another involves an elementary-school-age boy who sees his father violently arrested and knocked unconscious. The boy himself is painfully dragged and squeezed until he can't breathe. Domestic violence is also a strong theme, with very little actually seen but scary noises and bruises and other injuries imply being beaten. Teens vape marijuana once or twice, a character's dad sells marijuana for a living. An adult gives a teen "Jamaican ginger brew" that's possibly alcoholic. Strong language includes "bulls---tin'," "s--t," "nigga," and "a--hole." Overall messages are positive but cautionary about what kinds of support people in distressed communities need in order to have hope and thrive. The main characters are strong role models and positive representations of African Americans in different circumstances.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

DEAR JUSTYCE is the story of Quan, who ever since he was a little kid has tried so hard to keep it together under tough circumstances. He's good at math and loves to read, but the one teacher he has a real connection with goes on maternity leave, and suddenly it's like no one in school even notices him. He tries to protect his younger siblings from his mom's abusive boyfriend. He has a loving and close relationship with his father, but witnesses his father's violent arrest and doesn't see or hear from his father for many years afterward. As he becomes a teen, he starts making some poor choices, but really, what were his alternatives? While spending two years in a juvenile detention facility awaiting trial for murder, he strikes up a correspondence with Justyce, an old friend from the neighborhood who's now a freshman at Yale. Through writing to Justyce, working toward getting a high-school diploma, and getting into therapy for his panic attacks, Quan starts to feel again like he's seen, heard, and valued as a human being, and like he has something to contribute to this world. But with a long jail sentence an almost certainty, how can he hold on to hope?

Is It Any Good?

This moving sequel is a realistic and powerful look at what happens when hope for your future trickles away drop by drop, starting when you're just 9 years old. Like Dear Martin, Quan's story in Dear Justyce has fully believable characters coping with events and circumstances that feel ripped from the headlines. And the story's also told in letters, movie-script dialogue, and straightforward narration. But this time author Nic Stone takes an unblinking look at what can happen to kids who don't have the same kind of support and resources that Justyce had. Thanks to the believable voices of Quan and Justyce, it's always compelling and sometimes frustrating or heartbreaking, sometimes funny, and sometimes even hopeful.

Fans of Justyce will be glad to catch up with him and a few other characters from Dear Martin . And whether readers are new to the franchise or not, there are plenty of new characters to root for and relate to as they ask themselves big, important questions about what people need to grow, thrive, and dream.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how Dear Justyce portrays Quan and Justyce. Are they both role models? What are their character strengths and weaknesses?

Why is it important to see different types of people and different skin colors represented in media? How do you feel when there's a character you can identify with? What can you learn about people who are different from you?

Did you read Dear Martin ? How does this book compare? Which do you like better? If you didn't read it, would you like to now?

Book Details

• Author : Nic Stone
• Genre : Contemporary Fiction
• Topics : Friendship
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Crown Books for Young Readers
• Publication date : September 29, 2020
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 14 - 17
• Number of pages : 288
• Available on : Paperback, Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
• Last updated : October 23, 2020

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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Book Review: The Untapped Knowledge of Animals

In “the internet of animals,” martin wikelski highlights what insights humans can learn from creatures great and small..

Top: An ICARUS tag on a blackbird. Visual: Max Plank Society/Yoon et al., Sensors 2019

I n the spring of 2022, while conducting research for a book, I spoke with a bird biologist who was studying meadowlarks, a grassland species with a lovely melodic song that for me signals the onset of spring. The biologist was heading out to the field soon to tag the birds, fitting some of them with tiny transmitters that would let researchers track their movements over several years. With grassland birds faring poorly — and meadowlark populations in particular in steep decline — the project sought to find out where the birds were going each spring and fall. Were they returning to the exact same breeding sites year after year? Did they follow the same route? This data could help inform conservation planning.

BOOK REVIEW — “The Internet of Animals: Discovering the Collective Intelligence of Life on Earth,” by Martin Wikelski (Greystone Books, 272 pages).

But the work had hit a roadblock: The new, high-tech tags she and other scientists had been eagerly awaiting, developed in Germany and part of a system known as ICARUS, would not be arriving as planned. ICARUS, or the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space, had been built to work by communicating with the Russian module of the International Space Station. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent scientific-iron-curtain drawing had scuttled the entire effort. The ICARUS team had gone back to the drawing board, redesigning their system to work without Russia, and it would be more than two years before the new tags were ready for use.

Our conversation left me amazed that field ecology in the eastern U.S. had intersected with war and geopolitics thousands of miles away. How could the lives of these yellow-breasted songbirds have anything to do with Vladimir Putin? It seemed so farfetched, and yet also a stark reminder of how interconnected the planet truly is.

Martin Wikelski understands this. He is the German scientist behind the ill-fated ICARUS transmitters, and he has spent nearly three decades trying to build an “internet of animals” — a network of sensor-wearing critters and the data they generate that can serve as a window for humans onto all manner of animal experiences. Wikelski’s new book, “ The Internet of Animals: Discovering the Collective Intelligence of Life on Earth ,” chronicles his quest to design, build, and launch this network. It’s a fascinating personal account of how science unfolds, how questions about biology and ecology can become tied up with space agencies and fascist regimes, and how years can fade into decades. An accomplished biologist, Wikelski is also an indefatigable entrepreneur and a great storyteller.

Wikelski’s quest to understand the hidden lives of animals took flight in the late 1990s at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he was a young professor. Working with Bill Cochran, a wildlife biologist and basement tinkerer who pioneered the use of radio telemetry for tracking animals, Wikelski set out to understand what influenced songbird migration routes, and whether birds of different species were communicating with one another along the journey.

How could the lives of these songbirds have anything to do with Vladimir Putin? It seemed so farfetched, and yet also a stark reminder of how interconnected the planet truly is.

To do this, the two would set out across the Illinois prairie “on good migration nights,” waiting for the moment when the individual Swainson’s thrushes that Cochran had fitted with small transmitters and microphones took to the air. The researchers had turned their jalopies into labs on wheels: They sliced holes in the cars’ roofs, through which they inserted pole-mounted antennas. “We drove like tornado chasers behind a single bird each night,” Wikelski writes, “constantly rotating our antennas to determine where the bird was going and to receive the strongest signal possible. All we needed to do was speed after the thrushes while recording their sounds continuously.”

This gonzo research effort yielded breakthrough insights into how birds communicate: A bird would fly up to a certain altitude, call out, and listen for other birds’ responses. If the replies came, the bird would know it had found a good, safe pathway. The research, Wikelski writes, revealed “a highway in the sky, where birds were providing each other with key information on how high to fly, where to go, and who to follow.” This “ancient organic symphony,” he writes, is “created by animals as they exchange information across species and continents.” And it is high time, he argues, for humans to “tune in.”

Wikelski went on to work on a series of increasingly high-tech animal-tracking systems, evolving as technology advanced. With colleagues at the Smithsonian’s Panama-based Barro Colorado Island field station in the early 2000s, he developed a system called ARTS (automated radio telemetry system) that let scientists follow the movement of rainforest mammals, enabling biologists to “study who was eating whom, and where and when. We could immediately see when an agouti was killed by an ocelot, or when an agouti was carrying away a nut that had fallen to the ground under the mother tree.” As the data from tagged animals began to pile up, Wikelski and his collaborators created Movebank, an online “history of the living pulse of the planet.”

“We drove like tornado chasers behind a single bird each night.”

One evening in Panama in 2001, Wikelski was sitting outside with George Swenson, a legendary University of Illinois radio astronomer famous for designing the Very Large Array telescope, among other astronomical advances. Swenson told Wikelski he wasn’t thinking big enough. “You ecologists have a huge responsibility to the world and you’re not living up to it. You think too small, you don’t organize yourselves globally, and you don’t demand the instrumentation you really need to answer the questions governments and society at large ask — or should be asking.”

Swenson challenged Wikelski to “set up a scientific system designed to study animal life on the planet using satellites.” So Wikelski called Bill Cochran — his migratory-bird-chasing partner and a longtime friend of Swenson’s — and asked his “practical” advice. Cochran said such a system was possible, and that it could work by relaying data via the ISS. Thus was ICARUS born — with Wikelski’s prediction that it could be operational by 2005.

Wikelski’s book tracks the reality of the colossal effort to get ICARUS off the ground, which took not four but some 20 years. It went live in 2020, experienced technical issues in 2021, and culminated in February 2022, when just a single person’s signature was needed to get ICARUS back online. Then, Russia invaded Ukraine. Along with this arc, the book is also filled with charming anecdotes about animals and their underappreciated intelligence, like the Galápagos rice rats on Isla Santa Fé who understood that they could enter Wikelski’s tent — even crawl up his arms, nibble his fingers, and sit on his head — when he was alone on the island but not when the other, rat-hating, members of his field team were present.

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Why is building an internet of animals so important that Wikelski has devoted decades of his career to it? The route we are on, particularly in the West, of viewing the natural world only in terms of what we can extract from it for our own gain, is a path to ruin. Wikelski believes the “next chapter in human evolution” is the Interspecies Age, where humans recognize that we are partners with other species, consider their needs when we make decisions, and “link the knowledge these other species have to our own knowledge.” Among many other benefits of this Interspecies Age, he says, will be the ability to draw on animals’ sixth sense to help us predict “when something big is happening in the environment” — a buildup of toxins in a landscape, the onset of an El Niño event, the emergence of a plague of locusts.

All these are important. My one gripe about “The Internet of Animals,” though, is that it places too much emphasis on what animals can tell us about things that might harm us — like predicting earthquakes — as opposed to what they can reveal about how our actions might be harming them . Perhaps this is simply a tool to convince a broad audience of the project’s potential. But the true value of an internet of animals goes back to the meadowlarks. If we don’t know what routes they follow, where they land along the way, what pitfalls — natural or human-made — may cause their journeys to end in tragedy, then we can’t work effectively protect the habitat, food, and other resources they need to survive. An internet of animals would help us see the currently invisible parts of our world — how animals distribute seeds, how they cope with the impacts of climate change, how they interact with one another when there isn’t anyone around to watch.

When a tree falls in the forest, it obviously makes a sound, whether humans are there or not. But what sound, exactly, and what happens next — who hides, who takes flight, who rushes in to grab and store the seeds, who loses a nest and must head off in search of a new home — are secrets that ICARUS might yet reveal. Learning these things could both open our eyes to the incredible hidden lives of our animal neighbors and move us to better protect the planet that sustains us all.

Hillary Rosner is a science journalist and the assistant director of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and National Geographic, among other outlets.

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Comcast expands broadband to more people in Spokane County

Comcast expanded broadband service to 13,928 additional homes and 862 businesses in Washington, including major projects in Spokane County.