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From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

This necessary book for our time is labeled a "remix" of Kendi’s 2016 National Book Award winner published for adults, Stamped from the Beginning. It’s an accurate description: Reynolds’ adaptation is intimate and conversational, a significant departure from the original academic tome. Frequently speaking directly to young readers in his distinctive and recognizable voice, Reynolds makes hard truths accessible in the tone of a trusted friend breaking it down with honesty, and even occasional humor. After documenting the origins of racist ideas, he introduces three categories of people based on their beliefs: racist, assimilationist, and anti-racist. This is followed by a chronological exploration of the racial politics of United States, from the Puritans through the Obama era. Along the way are examples of historical people, from Cotton Mather to W.E.B. DuBois to Angela Davis, showing how each exemplified the definitions of racist, assimilationist, and anti-racist. The narrative stops just before 2016, but readers have been given the foundation to begin to evaluate our current era on their own. Although Stamped is a real departure from Reynolds’ fiction and poetry, it still bears his trademark style, which will make it extremely appealing to his fans, and may even win him some new ones. An Afterword written directly to teens is especially moving and powerful. (Age 12 and older)

CCBC Choices 2021 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2021. Used with permission.

From School Library Journal

Starred review from April 1, 2022

Gr 4-8-First came Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, awarded the 2016 National Book Award. Then Reynolds with Kendi presented (and narrated) " A Remix" with 2020's Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You for young adults. Middle grade audiences get their own version, distilled by educator/activist Cherry-Paul and read by Pe'Tehn Raighn-Kem Jackson, a tween phenom who began publicly performing poetry at three. Reading since she was 18 months, her fluency is prodigious, her pacing exacting. She's especially effective in the "Let's PAUSE/Let's UNPAUSE" interstitials that offer further explication or background. Cherry-Paul writes to draw readers into conversations, asking questions, inviting-if not out-loud answers-deep thinking and reflecting. Jackson's exceptional performance enlivens a powerful peer-to-peer exchange. VERDICT All libraries should provide easy access to every iteration of the "Stamped" series in every medium; stock with The 1619 Project: Born on the Water to encourage and enable every age group in their anti-racist journeys.

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From School Library Journal

Starred review from June 4, 2021

Gr 4-8-In this adaptation of Reynolds and Kendi's award-winning Stamped from the Beginning, Cherry-Paul uses a rope analogy to examine unjust racial hierarchy ideas and concepts. Throughout history, this rope has been used by the dominant culture to tie oppressed people to a corrupt ideology. It has also been used as a symbol of the power struggle bet2ween antiracist and racist thought patterns. This young readers edition assesses how the symbols and monuments of flawed heroes affect our country today. Kids who are just learning about the world around them will now have the tools to begin to understand the complicated path the United States took toward the racial inequity we see today. This version of Stamped features a time line and a glossary and, most important, includes kids in the fight to dismantle racism. The concepts of segregationist, assimilationist, and antiracist are simplified and presented in terms that tweens can understand. Cherry-Paul took the emotional development of children into account when crafting the narrative around the difficult nature of antiracist work. She effectively holds space for kids while supplying them with concepts they will need to be a part of an antiracist society. VERDICT A wonderfully accessible version of the already seminal work for teens; ideal for upper elementary and middle school libraries.-Desiree Thomas, Worthington Lib., OH

Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Booklist

May 21, 2021
Grades 2-4 Kendi and Reynolds continue to share their vital antiracist message with this young reader's edition of their celebrated collaboration, Stamped (2020). With the help of Cherry-Paul, the conversational tone is skillfully carried over from last year's installment, with the distinction of shorter chapters and well-placed asides to provide additional context. The actions of significant figures, from Lincoln to Obama, are discussed through three lenses--racist, assimilationist, and antiracist--and examined candidly, posing challenges to preconceptions and noting how some of those figures' actions sometimes reversed or evolved in their lifetimes. Throughout the book, readers are asked to pause and un-pause "to breathe and feel" and think deeply about the ideas and history discussed and their effect on everything from the history learned in school to popular culture. Baker's gray-scale illustrations provide an effective visual language for the intended audience and are featured varyingly as spot art and full-page depictions. The last chapter covers the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2020 Election, which, along with fresh bibliography, make this a dynamic title for our time.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From Kirkus

Starred review from May 1, 2021
A remixed remix of a foundational text. Kendi's Stamped From the Beginning (2016) is a crucial accounting of American history, rewritten and condensed for teens by Jason Reynolds as Stamped (2020). Educator Cherry-Paul takes the breadth of the first and the jaunty appeal of the second to spin a middle-grade version that manages to be both true to its forebears and yet all her own. She covers the same historical ground, starting with the origins of anti-Blackness and colonialism in medieval Europe, then taking readers through the founding of the U.S.A. and up to the present, with focuses on pivotal figures and pieces of pop culture. Cherry-Paul does an unparalleled job of presenting this complex information to younger readers, borrowing language from Reynolds' remix (like the definitions of segregationists, assimilationists, and antiracists) and infusing it with her own interpretations, like the brilliant, powerful, haunting metaphor of rope woven throughout. "Rope can be a lifeline," she says, and "rope can be a weapon....Rope can be used to tie, pull, hold, and lift." Readers are encouraged to "Think about the way rope connects things. Now think about what racist ideas have been connected to so far: Skin color. Money. Religion. Land." Baker's stark portraiture paces the text and illustrates key players. Exhilarating, excellent, necessary. (timeline, glossary, further reading.) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From Horn Book

January 1, 2021
Cherry-Paul adapts Reynolds's YA "remix" of Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning for a middle-grade audience. Reynolds's forthright conversational voice comes through; the book's chronological organization is similar to its YA counterpart. Accompanied by black-and-white halftone illustrations, short readable chapters hit on main points, and occasional sidebars provide related information. "Pauses" in the main text clarify concepts and give readers a chance to gather their thoughts about how deep white supremacy runs and what being antiracist means. A seven-page timeline and a glossary are appended, as are lists of suggested picture books, chapter books, and books for older readers.

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From School Library Journal

Starred review from July 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-Kendi's National Book Award-winning book Stamped from the Beginning has been engagingly adapted here for younger listeners by Jason Reynolds. Billed as a "not history history book," the audio traces the history of racism and African American people from 1415 to the present day. Reynolds focuses more on the people that made the history than the events, which gives life to the story. Activists such as Cotton Mather, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Angela Davis are spotlighted, as are the American Founding Fathers/slaveowners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Slavery, the civil rights movement, and #BlackLivesMatter are covered. Kendi reads the introduction to the audio, clearly describing the differences among segregationists, assimilationists, and antiracists. Reynolds narrates the rest with his customary energy and expression, and in a conservational tone which adds intimacy. The audio is set up chronologically and in easily accessible chapters. Younger listeners may find some of the issues discussed both challenging and emotional. VERDICT This audiobook, which has deservedly received a lot of media attention, should be in all secondary school libraries.-Julie Paladino, formerly with East Chapel Hill H.S., NC

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Horn Book

May 1, 2020
Reynolds insists from the first paragraph that "this is not a history book," and he's right; what instead he has created, in high rhetorical style, is a taking-to-account of American racism: how it got here, why it sticks around, why it needs to stop. Based on Kendi's National Book Award--winning Stamped from the Beginning (not read by this reviewer), this young reader's edition begins its argument in the European explorations and conquests of the fifteenth century, proceeding through slavery in colonial America through the Black Lives Matter movement of today. It's not an upward journey, though: the book takes a determinedly radical approach to racism and antiracism. Its heroes are John Brown, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis (very well profiled here) rather than Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., or Barack Obama. It's a point of view rarely seen in books for young people, but much of the appeal will stem from its fondness for overbold statements, like identifying a fourteenth-century Portuguese writer as "the world's first racist" only to contradict that claim with a reference to Aristotle within a few pages; and categorical thinking, like saying there were only two kinds of people in colonial America (farmers and missionaries) and, more generally, only three kinds of people in the world (racists, assimilationists, and antiracists). The casual voice is inviting if sometimes glib (comparing owning slaves to owning fancy sneakers, for example), but the joyful epater-ing of la bourgeoisie (e.g., Brown v. Board of Education is "actually a pretty racist idea") offers lots to think and talk about. With source notes, an index, and a suggested reading list (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry). Roger Sutton

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from January 27, 2020
Reynolds (Look Both Ways) lends his signature flair to remixing Kendi's award-winning Stamped from the Beginning into a powerful "not a history book" primer on the historical roots and present-day manifestations of antiblack racism in America. In five sections, Reynolds's conversational text discusses the influential figures, movements, and events that have propagated racist ideas, beginning in 1415 with the publication of the infamous work that laid the groundwork for subsequent religious justifications of enslaving African peoples and continuing through the "war on drugs" and #BlackLivesMatter. Employing a format that hews closely to Kendi's original, Reynolds discusses and differentiates between segregationist ("a hater"), assimilationist ("a coward"), and antiracist ("someone who truly loves") rhetoric via figures such as Angela Davis, W.E.B. DuBois, Thomas Jefferson, and Cotton Mather. Short chapters, lively phrasing ("You know what hits doâ€"they spread"), and intentional breaks ("Time Out," "Let's all just take a deep breath") help maintain a brisk, compelling pace. Told impressively economically, loaded with historical details that connect clearly to current experiences, and bolstered with suggested reading and listening selected specifically for young readers, Kendi and Reynolds's volume is essential, meaningfully accessible reading. Ages 12—up.

From School Library Journal

Starred review from January 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-Reynolds's adaptation of Kendi's National Book Award-winning title teaches readers to think critically about racism and antiracism in the United States and the Western world. Within short chapters and a chronological format, the authors discuss specific people and/or historical events. Those selected examples are used to expand upon broader themes. There are no shallow representations of the men and women profiled in this book. The authors argue that people fit into three categories, some transitioning from one category to another: segregationists, assimilationists, and antiracists. The actions of President Thomas Jefferson, Cotton Mather, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, and President Barack Obama, among other U.S. presidents, citizens, and organized movements, are evaluated in relation to these categories. The varying text and sentence sizes, and the occasional font changes, effectively guide readers through the content. The tone of the writing varies from provocative to funny to gentle. Due to the work not being a straight narrative account, some passages may require readers to seek further information to fully understand the context. A recommended reading list features older and contemporary adult and young adult fiction and nonfiction titles. VERDICT Reynolds and Kendi eloquently challenge the common narrative attached to U.S. history. This adaptation, like the 2016 adult title, will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact. Highly recommended for libraries serving middle and high school students.-Hilary Writt, Sullivan University, Lexington, KY

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Booklist

Starred review from January 1, 2020
Grades 7-12 *Starred Review* Reynolds continues his prolific streak with an absorbing young reader's adaptation of Kendi's National Book Award-winning title, Stamped from the Beginning (2016). This is not a history book declares Reynolds at the outset, an announcement that instantly absorbs readers, displaying the author's singular way of communicating with young people. Reynolds' remix begins in 1415 and travels into the present in five well-paced sections, following the general outline of Kendi's comprehensive title. Through figures like Cotton Mather, W. E. B Du Bois, and Angela Davis, among others, the thought patterns of segregationists, assimilationists, and antiracists, respectively, are elucidated, along with the impact such ideas have on all aspects of American life. Throughout the book, Reynolds inserts literal pauses ( Record scratch ), and interjects with commentary ( Let that sink in ) and clarifications, a way of insisting that the pages are not merely text, but a conversation. Readers will undoubtedly experience a mixture of feelings after finishing this book, but the encouragement to emerge as critical thinkers who can decipher coded language and harmful imagery stemming from racist ideas, which still linger in modern society and popular culture, will be the most empowering result. Thankfully, extensive back matter is included, with source notes and a dynamic further reading list. Required reading for everyone, especially those invested in the future of young people in America.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Reynolds is practically a household name in the kidlit community, and his lively take on Kendi's National Book Award-winning history of racism is sure to garner lots of attention.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

From Horn Book

January 1, 2020
Reynolds insists from the first paragraph that "this is not a history book," and he's right; what instead he has created, in high rhetorical style, is a taking-to-account of American racism: how it got here, why it sticks around, why it needs to stop. Based on Kendi's National Book Award-�winning Stamped from the Beginning (not read by this reviewer), this young reader's edition begins its argument in the European explorations and conquests of the fifteenth century, proceeding through slavery in colonial America through the Black Lives Matter movement of today. It's not an upward journey, though: the book takes a determinedly radical approach to racism and antiracism. Its heroes are John Brown, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis (very well profiled here) rather than Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., or Barack Obama. It's a point of view rarely seen in books for young people, but much of the appeal will stem from its fondness for overbold statements, like identifying a fourteenth-century Portuguese writer as "the world's first racist" only to contradict that claim with a reference to Aristotle within a few pages; and categorical thinking, like saying there were only two kinds of people in colonial America (farmers and missionaries) and, more generally, only three kinds of people in the world (racists, assimilationists, and antiracists). The casual voice is inviting if sometimes glib (comparing owning slaves to owning fancy sneakers, for example), but the joyful �pater-ing of la bourgeoisie (e.g., Brown v. Board of Education is "actually a pretty racist idea") offers lots to think and talk about. With source notes, an index, and a suggested reading list (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry).

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Kirkus

Starred review from December 1, 2019
Award-winning author Reynolds (Look Both Ways, 2019, etc.) presents a young readers' version of American University professor Kendi's (How To Be an Antiracist, 2019, etc.) Stamped From the Beginning (2016). This volume, which is "not a history book," chronicles racist ideology, specifically anti-blackness in the U.S., from its genesis to its pernicious manifestations in the present day. In an open, conversational tone, Reynolds makes it clear that anti-black racist ideology in the U.S. has consistently relied on the erronious belief that African people (and black people in general) are "dumb" and "savage," ideas perpetuated through the written word, other media, and pseudo-science. Using separationist, assimilationist, and anti-racist historical figures, a direct line is drawn throughout U.S history from chattel slavery through the Civil War, Jim Crow, the civil rights era, the war on drugs, and #BlackLivesMatter, with plenty of little-known, compelling, and disturbing details inserted. Readers who want to truly understand how deeply embedded racism is in the very fabric of the U.S., its history, and its systems will come away educated and enlightened. It's a monumental feat to chronicle in so few pages the history of not only anti-black racism in the U.S., but also assimilationist and anti-racist thought as well. In the process it succeeds at connecting "history directly...to our lives as we live them right this minute." Worthy of inclusion in every home and in curricula and libraries everywhere. Impressive and much needed. (Nonfiction. 12-adult)

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From AudioFile Magazine

Jason Reynolds wrote and now narrates a vital and compelling young reader's remix of Kendi's STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING. Together, they have created essential listening for younger listeners, those who are raising them, and their teachers. Kendi himself narrates the introduction, setting a serious tone and clearly explaining segregationist, assimilationist, and antiracist ideas. Reynolds revisits those terms throughout the audiobook, which is centered on the history--and present manifestations--of racist ideas and policies. Even with such an intense subject, Reynolds writes and speaks directly to younger listeners in an engaging and open style. His rich voice and strong pacing make him especially good at emphasizing key points and carrying listeners through difficult concepts. Reynolds compels listeners to be critical thinkers and to take action. E.E.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine