Dear Martin

Justyce McAllister has done everything right. He is an honor student, captain of his debate team, headed for the Ivy League, and the kind of person who looks out for his friends. Then one night he ends up in handcuffs, and nothing about his record seems to matter.

Justyce has left his rough neighborhood to attend Braselton Prep, but he belongs fully to neither world. Former neighbors treat him with scorn, and his new classmates carry attitudes of their own. Hoping to make sense of it, he turns to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and begins writing him letters in a journal, testing whether King's ideas still hold up in Justyce's own life.

The stakes become far higher when Justyce and his best friend, Manny, are driving with the windows down and the music loud. Their volume enrages an off-duty white police officer in the next car. An argument breaks out, shots are fired, and both boys are caught in the line of fire. When the story reaches the media, it is Justyce who finds himself under attack.

Nic Stone's debut novel is told partly through those journal entries, and it follows a teenager struggling with racism, police violence and what they mean for the future he has worked so hard to build. It was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award.