I RISE

Fourteen-year-old Ayomide struggles to balance life as an activist with her desire to simply be a regular teenager.

The year Ayo was born, her mother, Rosalie, founded See Us, an influential grassroots civil rights group. Similar to Black Lives Matter, See Us focuses on issues impacting Black people—police brutality, racial profiling, and an unjust prison system—but with a local focus on Harlem. Despite being raised in the movement, Ayo is ready to move on and experience life like any kid her age. After an emotional conversation, her mom lets her step away from See Us. Then Rosalie is shot by police at a protest and ends up in a coma, and Ayo must decide if she can take on a leadership role and resume the fight for justice. The main characters are Black, and Arnold seamlessly weaves into the story historical information as well as facts about current issues related to the presumption of Black people’s criminality. The campaign Rosalie organizes after an unarmed Black man is killed by police is especially poignant, shining light on the disproportionate number of Black victims in fatal traffic stops. The way Arnold poses the question of how much one must “pay for the crime of living while Black” will prompt both Black and non-Black readers to ask difficult questions of themselves and society at large. This is simultaneously an intimate story with rich character development and a call to action.

A powerful novel about systemic racism that challenges readers.