Featuring: Promise Boys

I delight in writing this newsletter for you. It feels rather magical to get to gush about books. It is challenging, though, to sit down and try to capture my enthusiasm for a story in a manageable amount of words. Please note that whatever I write below, what I'd really like to do is see you in person and press this into your hands with a fervent, "here, you have to read this."

Without any further ado, here's our featured presentation!

Title: Promise Boys (published January 31, 2023)

Author: Nick Brooks

Genre: Mystery

Age range: 13+

Summary: The principal of a prestigious all-boys charter school in Washington, D.C. is murdered in his office, sending shockwaves through the community who had seen this school as a model for how to help young men. But when three students are hauled in as suspects, the identity of the murderer is not the only devastating truth that threatens to reveal itself.

It's similar to:

One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus (thrilling and clever school-based murder mystery)
Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas (coming of age story for black teenage boy whose life circumstances force him to grow up quickly)
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (black teenage boy figuring out how to live his life amidst generations of positive and negative pressures)

How I'd teach it:

As a whole class novel study. Hear me out, since murder mysteries are an atypical selection. For a whole class novel, you want complex characters who grow and change over the course of the book. You want relatable themes. You want, as Cornelius Minor said in the Schoolutions Podcast, books that can house students’ insecurities and their aspirations.

Promise Boys delivers. The three main characters—J.B., Ramón, & Trey—are forced to evaluate their choices and reflect on their lives once they each become a suspect. They grapple with real life questions that lend themselves to thematic analysis:

What does it mean to be a man or to be a father?
How are gangs, poverty, and systemic racism interconnected?
How does one break the cycle of poverty?
What’s the goal of a public school education?
How does money corrupt?

And of course, part of what makes this book so good is that these are normal teenagers, trying to navigate normal life. Becoming a murder suspect broadcasts their insecurities: Will I be judged based on my actions or on stereotypes? Will I disappoint my mom? How do I break away from toxic relationships? Seeing characters address these issues gives students a roadmap for facing their own insecurities.

Finally, engagement would be sky high. Use the murder mystery to hook students then leverage their enthusiasm into deep, evidenced-based discussions about identity, systemic racism, and privilege.

Learn more:

Nick Brooks’ interview on NPR details his choice to tell the story from multiple perspectives because that’s how schools work—everyone has their own idea about who that kid is.

If you really want to dig deep, enjoy this discussion between Jason Reynolds and Nick Brooks from earlier this week.

My final two cents: Come for the murder mystery, stay for the insightful social commentary. Seriously, you have to read this.

Literacy Love Notes:

Have you ever heard of a “First Line Face-Off”? See this Instagram post for all the details, but the gist is you pit the first lines from books against each other in a bracket system. Students vote to advance titles until there is a champion. Seems like a delightfully sneaky way to encourage reluctant readers to try out a book (”Just read the first line!”) and to introduce voracious readers to new genres and titles.

Have you read Legendborn by Tracy Deonn? This fantastic story of magic, secret societies, legacy, and race slipped past my radar and I don't want the same thing to happen to you. So if you haven't heard about it yet, now you know.

Have a good one and learn everything you can,

Hannah

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