How to Be a (Young) Antiracist

By: Ibram X. Kendi, Nic Stone

Narrated by: Nic Stone, Ibram X. Kendi

Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

The #1 New York Times bestseller that sparked international dialogue is now a book for young adults! Based on the adult bestseller by Ibram X. Kendi, and co-authored by bestselling author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist will serve as a guide for teens seeking a way forward in acknowledging, identifying, and dismantling racism and injustice.

The New York Times bestseller How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi is shaping the way a generation thinks about race and racism. How to be a (Young) Antiracist is a dynamic reframing of the concepts shared in the adult book, with young adulthood front and center. Aimed at listeners 12 and up and co-authored by award-winning children's book author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist empowers teen listeners to help create a more just society. Antiracism is a journey—and now young adults will have a map to carve their own path. Kendi and Stone have revised this work to provide anecdotes and data that speaks directly to the experiences and concerns of younger listeners, encouraging them to think critically and build a more equitable world in doing so.

©2023 Ibram X. Kendi and Logolepsy Media Inc. (P)2023 Listening Library

Critic reviews

★"Heartbreaking, soaring, fulfilling, a deep-dive, this should be canon in high school classrooms and reprinted in pocket-size format for carrying around." –School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW

"Attention to gender, sexuality, class, and honest self-critique makes for an ambitiously inclusive addition to a growing booklist of youth-oriented racial equity work, but the concluding four c’s of changemaking—cogency, compassion, creativity, collaboration—are on full display here in a standout text." —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"[A] book that illuminate[s] how each of us are gradually drafted into the thinking, the lies and distorted truths which can render a person unable or at least unwilling to challenge the systems and practices which masquerade as normal, as functional and fair. In reality, many of those systems drive and sustain vast inequality along with pervasive belief in group inferiority or superiority. [A] book that seems to want to equip young people living now, in the midst of surround-sound injustice, open and almost gleeful bigotry – in public and in private – with the language and the skills to recognize they too have been drafted. Then it calls on them to decide if, where, and how they will revolt against that system." —Time Magazine

Five stars always inspiring

Five stars always inspiring words from Ibram X Kendi. Highly recommended you will love this book.

Dr. Kendi's critics clearly haven't read his work

Having read (listened to) the original, 3 times, and now this youth adaptation I am deeply impressed by Dr. Kendi's understanding and framing of the problems of identity discrimination in the US. His definitions are clear and frame a profound and cogent system for both self reflection and structural reform. The self-reflection bit is what I think many who loudly critique Dr. Kendi and other antiracist authors and activists miss. In the original, but more pointedly in this adaptation, the personal criticism is piled most sharply on previous versions of Ibram X. Kendi. We follow Nic Stone's skillful navigation of Kendi's story to bluntly confront the racist ideas that Kendi himself ascribed to and acted on. This narrative approach allows the reader to identify with Kendi in that moment and instead of ridicule and shame, we are given hope and inspiration right along with the developing Dr. Kendi. I can identify similar ideas that I have held to in my distant (sometimes not-so-distant) past. I can learn from the way young Ibram learned from these mistaken ideas to move towards a better understanding of himself and the society we live in. At its core, the message of this book is one of optimism and hope. That once we recognize wrong, racist ideas, we can all learn antiracist ideas, and find antiracist solutions together. And together, build a better, more antiracist society that welcomes all people and the beautiful rainbow of colors and identities (with their myriad intersections) that are the human species.