Last night, my 17yo (white, cis, male, btw) finished reading Beloved for the first time. He was full of the most beautiful “a book just blew my mind” energy: pacing the kitchen, paraphrasing the last brilliant page— IYKYK— and wow in this moment where so much hope is lost, it gave me a small measure of hope! About novels, about compassion, about these incredible kids growing up in such a broken world, about raising readers, about the gift of using our minds, about reading outside of our genders and races and experiences, and about that beautiful, heartbreaking novel itself. He has marked the whole thing up with Post-It notes. Read! A! Book!