Despite recently losing a friend to gun violence, African American Richard is focused on improving his grades and graduating from his Oakland high school. Sasha, who attends private school, is agender and brilliant, the type of person who invents languages for fun. On November 4, 2013, as Richard and Sasha ride the bus home from their respective schools, Richard holds a lighter to Sasha’s skirt, which erupts into flames. This event sets in motion a long, painful process of court appearances for Richard, and healing for both. The two teens are treated with respect and empathy in this nonfiction account that begins with an exploration of their backgrounds, including Sasha’s gradual understanding that they don’t identify as either male or female, and continues through Sasha’s recovery and Richard’s sentencing. Accessible descriptions of aspects of the U.S. and California justice systems—the practice of restorative justice and California’s Proposition 21, which allows juvenile offenders to be charged as adults—in addition to information about Richard’s personality and adolescent brains and behavior, suggest that, as Richard’s friend attests, the crime “was like a funny prank-joke turns to something that ends your whole life.” Although a grim event begins this narrative, the humanity of both teens and their families is palpable throughout. (Age 14 and older)

The riveting New York Times bestseller and Stonewall Book Award winner that will make you rethink all you know about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment. Artfully, compassionately, and expertly told, Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus is a must-read nonfiction book for teens that chronicles the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California.

Two ends of the same line. Two sides of the same crime.

If it weren’t for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a Black teen, lived in the economically challenged flatlands and attended a large public one.

Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight. But in The 57 Bus, award-winning journalist Dashka Slater shows that what might at first seem like a simple matter of right and wrong, justice and injustice, victim and criminal, is something more complicated—and far more heartbreaking.

Awards and Accolades for The 57 Bus:
A New York Times Bestseller
Stonewall Book Award Winner
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist
A Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book Winner
A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist

Don’t miss Dashka Slater’s newest propulsive and thought-provoking nonfiction book, Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed, the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner which National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi hails as “powerful, timely, and delicately written.”