Spring 2019, Wild Readers 5 discussion

For my sixth book I chose The 57 Bus by Dashka Slate. I chose this book again simply because of the cover of the book. I feel like this is a reoccurring theme with me and choosing books. It turns out that this book is about a true story that happened in Oakland, California which I found very interesting considering that Oakland is traveling distance from where I live. So I felt a special connection there with the book. Anyways, the book's two main characters are Sasha and Richard. The author does an amazing job diving into these two characters backgrounds as well as adding any detail to the story that they can. Sasha is a non gender conforming individual whose skirt gets caught on fire by Richard after they fell asleep on the 57 bus. Also, because they do not conform to any gender the author decided to use proper pronouns throughout the book. Which is confusing but also kind of cool because you do not see that or read that too often. This book dives into the lives of these two characters and really pulls out the backstories and also the "justice" behind the whole event. I would recommend this book to anyone who might live close by Oakland or to someone who is wanting to read a nonfiction book that had a wow factor in it. I do have to admit however I would not recommend this book for younger readers simply because the writing and events that are described in this book are somewhat intense. That being said this book would fit perfectly in a high school grade.