Oshiro brilliantly gives us a challenging and truthful world that will foster profound discussion on a topic we shouldn’t be shying away from. His mother teaches him that where he sees anger due to injustice, he can also find power, freedom, and strength that can lead to progress. Through Moss, we learn that all the feelings he experiences are in fact his tools for survival. While others want him to fight, rally, and march, Moss first wants to find peace so that freedom from his anger can finally bring about progress. Moss knows he should fight, but the pain is still real and it immobilizes him. Injustice is rampant in his community, and the death of his father is a marker of a world meant to dismantle communities that are different, whether it be in race, gender, sexuality, or other. Since the loss of his father six years ago due to police negligence, Moss’s life is thrust into a state of disarray that is constantly afflicted by anxiety and self-doubt. MY TWO CENTS: As a teenager, all you do is dream of being someone else, but for Moss, it is less about escaping his world and more about escaping himself.
When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.
Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration. Constant intimidation and Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals by their own school. Along with losing a parent, the media’s vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks. Six years ago, Moss Jefferies’ father was murdered by an Oakland police officer.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK: Moss Jeffries is many things-considerate student, devoted son, loyal friend and affectionate boyfriend, enthusiastic nerd.īut sometimes Moss still wishes he could be someone else-someone without panic attacks, someone whose father was still alive, someone who hadn’t become a rallying point for a community because of one horrible night.
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