Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Ain't Burned All the Bright

📖 Ain’t Burned All The Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin Book Review 📖

1st book of April 2022 and 13th of the year:

Following the story of a Black American family in 2020, this is such a powerful and moving book about the Covid pandemic/lockdown and the horrific violence against Black Americans, and the impact of those things and more on people. The art was absolutely beautiful and impactful, and the story, how the breathing metaphor was used, and the lack of a lot of words, allowing the art to tell a lot of the story, were so important and done so well. I highly recommend picking this up! TW for police brutality, racism, hate crimes, death, violence, gun violence, the Covid pandemic, sickness, grief, murder, and medical content📚

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blackcatkai's review

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emotional fast-paced

5.0

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vaniavela's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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readandfindout's review

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Diverse cast of characters? N/A

4.5

Style/writing: 5 stars
Themes: 5 stars
Perspective: 4 stars
Art: 4.5 stars

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kayladaila's review

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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betweentheshelves's review

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emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

This book just shows the mastery that Jason Reynolds has over language. Overall, there aren't that many words in this book, but they make you feel something. Highly recommend reading the coversation between Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin at the end about how this book came to be, because it's a wonderful story.

We shouldn't forget about the art, either. The art combined with the words in this book is part of what makes it such a powerful experience. I'm not sure I could completely put it into words. But I would 100% love to listen to Jason Reynolds read this, so I'm definitely leaving my audiobook hold from the library. Honestly, just read this book.

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downsophialane's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

Ain't Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin is an outstanding reflection on the trauma of the past two years for Black people in the US. This is a moving and timely poem beautifully presented alongside Griffin's art. A very special title.

The audio edition also includes a lovely conversation between the author and the illustrator.

TO TEACH? 🍎
This is a no-brainer: absolutely, yes. This would be good for teaching poetry and visual with a civics/current events focus, and the audiobook performance could dovetail with performance poetry techniques and aural aspects of poetry.

❤❤❤❤❤

Thank you to Libro.fm and Simon & Schuster Audio for providing an early copy of the audiobook version through their ALC program.

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