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Friday, July 28, 2017
YA Racism Novel About as Subtle as a Sledgehammer
4:57 PM
(Image from Barnes & Noble)
1920—Will Tillman is a white teenager selling record players at his father's shop in Tulsa. Black customers aren't allowed to make purchases, but sometimes the elder Tillman allows some off-the-record sales. When Will agrees to do business with a young black man, he unknowingly makes a decision that will put the lives of three people in danger. In a time and place boiling over with racial tension, it's a decision that will prove fatal for one of them.

Although she's a bi-racial woman living in Tulsa, Rowan has never thought much about what happened in her town over 100 years ago. Now, though, she's obsessed. She thought things had changed a whole lot since then, but the more she learns about Will Tillman and a black man named Joseph Goodhope, the more she wonders if anything has changed at all.
Dreamland Burning, a YA novel by Jennifer Latham, brings to life a tragic historical event that I knew nothing about. Latham uses the riot as a backdrop for an intriguing tale about friendship, hope, and race. The story is compelling, although its messages are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. It's peopled with diverse characters who push against established stereotypes, which I appreciate, but again, some details (James' sexuality, for instance) seem tacked on just to up the book's diversity quotient. Overall, I found Dreamland Burning intriguing. Certain elements annoyed me, though, which turned the novel into a just okay read for me.
(Readalikes: Hm, I can't think of anything. Can you?)
Grade:
If this were a movie, it would be rated:
for violence, language (no F-bombs), blood/gore, and disturbing subject matter
To the FTC, with love: I bought a copy of Dreamland Burning from Amazon with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger. Ha ha.
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