Dear Manny

Gr 9 Up–This book ventures where no Stone book has gone before: into the mind of a white teenage boy. Jared P. Christensen was a total tool in Dear Martin, a surprising ally in Dear Justyce, and now he’s progressed into a sympathetic protagonist. Readers join him during his second sophomore semester at Yale, where Jared somewhat begrudgingly enters the Junior Class Presidential race. There, he’s sandwiched between two opponents—a galling conservative who “has zero qualms about tossing [the] campus back to 1869,” and an attractive Black young woman with boundary-bashing liberal views. Stone brings her typical empathetic pleas for awareness into this new viewpoint. Jared is not perfect. He’s still learning and making stupid mistakes. But his desire to recognize his privilege and use it for good is admirable. Along the way, Stone seamlessly educates readers about Constitutional rights and Black history, making a measured case for wider understanding when approaching all social issues.