The nickel boys: a novel
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English
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PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. • "One of the most gifted novelists in America today." —NPRNOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NOMINATED FOR AN ACADEMY AWARD® FOR BEST PICTURE AND DIRECTED BY ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE RAMELL ROSS When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers and “should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation's best" (Entertainment Weekly).
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ISBN
9780345804341
9780385537070
9780385537087
9781984891402
9780385537070
9780385537087
9781984891402
Subjects
Subjects
Abuse of administrative power -- Fiction
African American boys -- Abuse of -- Fiction
African American Fiction
African Americans -- Civil rights -- Fiction
African American teenagers -- Fiction
Arlington Reads -- 2019/2020
Fiction
Frenchtown (Tallahassee, Fla.) -- Fiction
Historical Fiction
Literature
Racism -- Fiction
Reformatories -- Fiction
African American boys -- Abuse of -- Fiction
African American Fiction
African Americans -- Civil rights -- Fiction
African American teenagers -- Fiction
Arlington Reads -- 2019/2020
Fiction
Frenchtown (Tallahassee, Fla.) -- Fiction
Historical Fiction
Literature
Racism -- Fiction
Reformatories -- Fiction
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Haunted men grapple with their childhood experiences in abusive reform schools (Nickel Boys) and Catholic-run residential schools (Indian Horse) in these moving novels. -- Autumn Winters
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Set in Jim Crow-era Florida and inspired by actual events, both disturbing novels chronicle the hardships faced by young Black boys at an abusive reform school, though The Reformatory includes horror elements while The Nickel Boys does not. -- Kaitlin Conner
Readers looking for more information behind the real school featured in The Nickel Boys will want to check out disturbing true crime We Carry Their Bones. -- Kaitlin Conner
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