Dear Martin by Nic Stone is another young adult novel that shows up on a lot of banned book lists. The fact that this novel is about what it's like to be a smart, well-educated, motivated teen with the wrong colored skin should not make it in any way objectionable. How would I have a glimmer of an idea of what it must be like to be a teen of color? If it wasn't for reading, how would I have any real idea? And isn't that why reading novels like Dear Martin is important? So I can learn about the world and life experiences of people outside my little bubble? Isn't this a perfect example of why book banning is stupid?
In Dear Martin, 17-year old Justyce undertakes a project to closely examine the life and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a way to better understand how he fits in to what is still a white world. He calls it his Be Like Martin experiment. As he deals with things, being handcuffed and taken in after trying to help his drunk girlfriend get home, extremely racist remarks from the kids he goes to school with, violence on the streets, he journals about them in his Dear Martin journal, wondering What would Martin do?
Justyce is a senior at an elite private school in Atlanta, on his way to Yale. He's one of three people of color in his high school class of 82. He doesn't really fit in at school. Throughout the book, I was so grateful for the character of "Doc," his debate team advisor and teacher of his Societal Evolution class. "Doc" is half black, has a PhD and is a real mentor and role model to Justyce. Everyone needs a trusted adult in his or her life. "Doc" is Justyce's trusted adult at school.
Justyce also doesn't fit in where he comes from. He feels like the white kids at school at trying to knock him down while the kids in his old neighborhood are trying to hold him down by his feet. His mother fears Justyce's interactions in the white world so while she wants the best for him, only sent him to this fancy prep school so that he could get ahead, she cautions him all the time and is totally against his friendship with his debate partner, Sarah-Jane.
Sarah-Jane and her family are interesting characters. I was able to really relate to Sarah-Jane. She is part of a Jewish family. Her great-grandparents immigrated to the United States after narrowly escaping death in a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust. When Justyce tries to explain to his best friend, Manny, or to his mother why SJ "gets him," She's Jewish. It's different... She's not white white. She's Jewish. It's different... he is reminded that she is white. She looks white and You can't see Jewish in her skin color... If it looks white, it's white in this world. This is a conversation that I have with my husband with far too much frequency lately. That he and I would be considered "other" by white supremists, but we look white, we ARE white, so we can slip by. This being "other" while looking like everyone else has afforded us the opportunity to develop a certain kind of empathy that we might not have otherwise developed. We are very privileged, but we know what it's like to be hated or discriminated against because we're part of a group, just because of the luck of who we were born to or where we were born.The same is true with Sarah-Jane and her family.
Yes, this book contains violence and it contains some "language." But it covers such important material and allows the reader to get a hint of what it might be like to be a young man like Justyce. The kids and who most need to read a novel like Dear Martin are the children of those attempting to ban the book. What are those parents afraid of their children learning?
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