Deborah Wiles (@DeborahWiles101) shares KENT STATE. Deborah is known for a great number of outstanding middle grade novels, but her YA debut is one that I believe will fully stop you in your tracks. KENT STATE is a novel in verse or perhaps more accurately a novel in voices about the events on May 4th, 1970 which led to members of the Ohio National Guard opening fire into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students. It is a book about events that took place over 50 years ago, but it is also inseparably a story about what is going on right now. It’s a novel that examines the importance of social justice and what it means to be an American. It is a retelling that will move you.
Get a copy of this book and support independent bookstores (and this podcast) by visiting our BookShop Store.
Thank you to this week's sponsor:
Bookclub (Patreon)
And to the generous support from our Patrons.
ON TODAY'S EPISODE (#629):
From two-time National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles, a masterpiece exploration of one of the darkest moments in our history, when American troops killed four American students protesting the Vietnam War.
May 4, 1970.
Kent State University.
As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why.
Told in multiple voices from a number of vantage points -- protestor, Guardsman, townie, student -- Deborah Wiles's Kent State gives a moving, terrifying, galvanizing picture of what happened that weekend in Ohio . . . an event that, even 50 years later, still resonates deeply.
Digital Audiobook performed by Christopher Gebauer (Narrator), Lauren Ezzo (Narrator), Christina Delaine (Narrator), Johnny Heller (Narrator), Roger Wayne (Narrator), Korey Jackson (Narrator), David de Vries (Narrator), and Deborah Wiles
SHOW NOTES:
Deborah Wiles (website)
"This is where I catalog research & resources for published books and work in progress. It's messy. It's process. Welcome." @DebbieWiles (Pinterest)
BECOME A PATRON:
Support for the Children’s Book Podcast comes from listeners like you. Learn how you can support the show and get exclusive access to podcast episodes not released to the public by visiting patreon.com/matthewcwinner
Comments