LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
This book is set 17 years before the action in Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give – showing how Star’s father in THUG became the man he is.
Maverick is an average teenage boy in the Garden Heights area – selling drugs to help the budget at home as his father is in prison. His Mum works two and sometimes three jobs to try to make ends meet – and Maverick knows he needs to graduate High School to stand any chance of becoming the man he wants to be. That is, until he discovers he is a father, and the baby’s mother can’t cope and hands baby Seven (named after Maverick’s lucky number) to Maverick to care for.
The difficulties of being a single parent, and the strong community who try to rally to Maverick’s aid are wonderfully depicted in this powerful exploration of what it is to be a teen parent. But, it is never so simple as the community pulling together, Maverick also has to turn away from his gang life, standalone – but then his cousin Dre, who was more like a brother, is killed in a gangland shooting and dies in Maverick’s arms.
This is such a powerful book – totally honest in its appreciation of the difficulties of life, but so filled with humanity you cannot help but root for Maverick, even when you are scared what he might choose to do. This is one of those books that stay with you – that will change people’s thinking, highlighting as it does some of the social injustices of growing up young and black in today’s world. Read it, then read The Hate u Give – if you haven’t already read it!
Reviewed by Tricia AdamsAs a professional librarian with more years’ experience than she cares to mention – Tricia has worked in several sectors including government libraries and as a self-employed…
More reviews by Tricia Adams About Concrete Rose
With his King Lord dad in prison and his mom working two jobs, seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter helps the only way he knows how: slinging drugs. Life's not perfect, but he's got everything under control. Until he finds out he's a father...
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About
Concrete Rose Synopsis
With his King Lord dad in prison and his mom working two jobs, seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter helps the only way he knows how: slinging drugs. Life's not perfect, but he's got everything under control. Until he finds out he's a father...
Suddenly it's not so easy to deal drugs and finish school with a baby dependent on him for everything. So when he's offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. But when King Lord blood runs through your veins, you don't get to just walk away.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781406384444 |
| Publication date: |
12th January 2021 |
| Author: |
Angie Thomas |
| Publisher: |
Walker Books Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
322 pages |
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Press Reviews
Angie Thomas Press Reviews
Thomas proves Game of Thrones-esque in her worldbuilding ability, deepening her landscape without sacrificing intimacy or heart. Garden Heights doesn't contain dragons or sorcerers, but it's nevertheless a kingdom under siege, and the contemporary pressures its royalty faces are graver for the realness that no magic spell can alleviate ... A resounding success. - Kirkus, starred review
A blistering, unputdownable look at black boyhood in the US, and what it means to be a man. It can be read as a standalone, but knowledge of The Hate U Give will make for a richer reading experience. - The Bookseller
Praise for The Hate U Give:
The Hate U Give says more about the contemporary Black experience in America than any book I have read for years. Guardian A startling, important book. The Times
Passionate and uncompromising. Observer
Thomas has given a voice to her generation. Stylist One of the most important books. Nikesh Shukla
Stunning, brilliant, gut-wrenching. John Green
Utterly compelling. Sunday Times
Angie Thomas is an African American woman who proves that blacks stories not only matter, but they sell too. gal-dem
Author
About Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas was born and raised in a tough neighbourhood in Jackson, Mississippi where gunshots were a frequent refrain. The library became her sanctuary; a place where she could escape into fantastical, magical worlds.
“I still remember the first time I travelled to Narnia, the first time I met Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which; the first time I rode a broom with the boy with the lightning scar.”
Yet these magical worlds never included girls who looked like her; or reflected her culture. It led her to believe that books weren’t for kids like her. She knew then that she didn’t want any other child to feel that way. She pursued a writing career and was the first Black teenager to graduate from her creative writing course at Belhaven University. Struggling to secure an agent with her work-in-progress, Angie turned her pen to YA and contemporary stories inspired by true events.
Her debut novel The Hate U Give was published to critical and commercial acclaim around the globe – it launched straight to No.1 on the New York Times bestseller list and has remained on the list since the book’s publication in 2017. In the UK, it was an Amazon No.1 bestseller, and was awarded the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, British Book Awards’ Children’s Book of the Year and the Amnesty CILIP Honour for the Carnegie Medal. An award-winning film adaptation was released in 2018, starring Amandla Stenberg. Her second novel On The Come Up was inspired by her time as a teen rapper, and is also a New York Times bestseller and film, released in 2022 and available to stream on Paramount+.
Angie founded A Tough ACT Productions to bring Black Girl Magic and Black Boy Joy to screens and was a producer on both The Hate U Give and On The Come Up adaptations. She is also the author of Concrete Rose (2021), a prequel to The Hate U Give, and Blackout (2021), co-authored with Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon.
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