Concrete Rose

By Author / Illustrator

Angie Thomas

Genre

Real life

Age range(s)

14+

Publisher

Walker Books Ltd

ISBN

9781406384444

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

12-01-2021

Synopsis

From international phenomenon Angie Thomas comes a hard-hitting return to Garden Heights with the story of Maverick Carter, Starr's father, set 17 years before the events of the award-winning The Hate U Give.

With his King Lord dad in prison and his mom working two jobs, seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter helps the only way he knows how: slinging drugs. Life's not perfect, but he's got everything under control. Until he finds out he's a father... Suddenly it's not so easy to deal drugs and finish school with a baby dependent on him for everything. So when he's offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. But when King Lord blood runs through your veins, you don't get to just walk away.

Praise for The Hate U Give: No. 1 New York Times Bestseller / Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Award / Winner of Children's Book of the Year at The British Book Awards / Winner of the Amnesty CILIP Honour for the Carnegie Medal / A major motion picture from Fox starring Amandla Stenberg

"The Hate U Give says more about the contemporary Black experience in America than any book I have read for years." Guardian "A startling, important book." The Times

Download Extract

Reviews

17 year old Maverick Carter is an average gang kid in late '90s America - happy to coast along, chilling with friends, playing video games and basketball and listening to Tupac. He’s also struggling at school, his gang lord father is in prison, and he is secretly selling drugs to help his mother pay the bills.

When a paternity test shows Mav to be the father of a baby conceived during a one night stand, the baby's mother takes off, leaving Mav to take care of him. Mav will have to grow up fast to take care of - and be responsible for - his son, all while finishing school and getting a legitimate job. Can he leave behind the gang life he was born into, especially after the murder of a loved one stirs strong feelings of loyality and revenge?

This prequel to The Hate U Give tells the story of a defining year in Star's dad's life. Concrete Rose is an intensely powerful story, full of heartbreaking sadness and profound love. Told through first person narration, we get an insight into the mind of a teenage boy struggling to come to terms with the huge responsibility suddenly thrust upon him. Mav's disarming honesty and attempts to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming obstacles (not least of which is himself) provide the backdrop for compelling, believable and relatable character development. The book oozes empathy.

Having not read The Hate U Give, I get the impression that there is some foreshadowing that I missed out on while reading this, but Concrete Rose still absolutely works on its own terms. The book does contain discussions of sex, violence and drug use, so I would recommend it more for more mature students, but it is engagingly written and easy to read - a great choice for older reluctant readers, as well as students after a story with real emotional heft.

336 pages / Reviewed by Dan Katz, school librarian