YA Review: Kent State

Last month, while I was looking for an audiobook to listen to, I spotted Deborah Wiles, a Kent State historical novel, in my audio backlog. I liked part of his 1960s middle-class trilogy , Wiles' Revolution , and I mistakenly thought it might be part of this series. However, focusing more on teenagers and young adults, the book tells the story of four American college students who were shot dead by members of the National Guard while protesting the Vietnam War in the state of Kent. It's not just a historical redirect, but a powerful first-person narrative, told from multiple angles, that was even more impressive on audio. I will not forget

Most people in the United States know the basics of this horrifying historical event, but nothing more than popular music and culture. On May 4, 1970, members of the United States National Guard were called to the Kent State University campus in Ohio to quell student protests against the Vietnam War. Protests were common at the time, but this time the situation got worse when the National Guard opened fire on the students, killing four people. The event made national news and inspired a now famous song by Neil Young ( Four Dead in Ohio ), but Wiles presented it in a whole new light. His book is narrated entirely in first person from various angles, as attendees recall the events of that week leading up to the shooting. The narrative shifts to the stories of Kent State students who knew about the murdered students, Kent City residents who feared escalating violence from this week's student protests, a black student in Ohio state, where protests were taking place the like and also a national security guard. . Who was there? The book is designed in such a way that all of these people were in the same room, each remembering events in their own way and telling their own stories. The result is an underlying narrative from multiple perspectives that provides a detailed and concise account of what happened together. The audio production features different narrators for each different character, each speaking from a first-person perspective, then each telling their own story.

The results, especially in the audio, are impressive, moving and very powerful. I was absolutely mesmerized by these 2 hours of audio production and felt like I heard these stories firsthand. I learned a lot about the specific history of this event, but I also learned a lot about what happened in the United States, in colleges across the country, and after the shooting. The author also added references to songs and other pop cultures that came out of them. I was not at all surprised to see this audio where ALA won the 2021 Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audio Production, that award because it was an audio experience that blew me away. The author's notes at the end give an idea of ​​the depth of Wiles' research by combining these first-person accounts and multiple perspectives. Fifty years later, this event is still relevant and contains lessons that we can and must learn from today. Hearing this description firsthand from many different sources is a powerful way to learn about the past.

144 pages, educational

school audio

This book corresponds to the following 2022 reading challenges :

Challenges of diversity

Literary Escape Challenge - Ohio

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My rating is not influenced by my views and my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

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