Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Ain't Burned All the Bright

📖 Ain’t Burned All The Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin Book Review 📖

1st book of April 2022 and 13th of the year:

Following the story of a Black American family in 2020, this is such a powerful and moving book about the Covid pandemic/lockdown and the horrific violence against Black Americans, and the impact of those things and more on people. The art was absolutely beautiful and impactful, and the story, how the breathing metaphor was used, and the lack of a lot of words, allowing the art to tell a lot of the story, were so important and done so well. I highly recommend picking this up! TW for police brutality, racism, hate crimes, death, violence, gun violence, the Covid pandemic, sickness, grief, murder, and medical content📚

Content Warnings

vaniavela's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Content Warnings

librarymouse's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

There is no better way to describe Ain't Burned All the Bright than that it is breathtaking. The art and writing line up with one another, mingle, and then diverge across the pages pages, allowing the story to be told in two ways that don't always agree, and which make the story more enrapturing and human. While reading I stopped and took a picture of the page with the lines "And still he does this from the other room / screaming his love through the door", about the narrator's sick father. Out of the whole book, that line stuck out to me the most. We all have loved and lost or nearly lost someone during 2020, and the image of someone screaming their love to their family from isolation, just in case, was so heart wrenching. An interesting theme shared throughout the writing and illustration is that the instant the news switches to commercial, the narrator feels more optimistic. A larger portions of the illustration spreads are done in color and the illustrations have more variety of color. When the news switches back on and the pages jar back to gray scale, it makes the reader feel like the bottom has dropped out of their stomach. The ways each of the narrator's family members deal with the pandemic, police brutality and racism, and quarantining show different coping mechanisms. The narrator looks into themself, worrying and searching for ways to help. The narrator's brother gets absorbed by a video game, seeking an escape from their reality. The narrator's sister sees injustice and hardship and seeks to make tangible change to the world they live in. The narrator's parents are more complex. Their father is trying to get better and their mother is trying to hold herself together, and they each use facets of their children's coping mechanisms to do so. I really enjoyed the motif of the father stitching together the colorful squares as he starts to get well. The colors seem to be tied to the narrator's mental state, and to have their father well again seems to be doing them wonders. Ain't Burned All the Bright is one of the most unique books I've ever read

Content Warnings

betweentheshelves's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

This book just shows the mastery that Jason Reynolds has over language. Overall, there aren't that many words in this book, but they make you feel something. Highly recommend reading the coversation between Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin at the end about how this book came to be, because it's a wonderful story.

We shouldn't forget about the art, either. The art combined with the words in this book is part of what makes it such a powerful experience. I'm not sure I could completely put it into words. But I would 100% love to listen to Jason Reynolds read this, so I'm definitely leaving my audiobook hold from the library. Honestly, just read this book.

Content Warnings

downsophialane's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

Ain't Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin is an outstanding reflection on the trauma of the past two years for Black people in the US. This is a moving and timely poem beautifully presented alongside Griffin's art. A very special title.

The audio edition also includes a lovely conversation between the author and the illustrator.

TO TEACH? 🍎
This is a no-brainer: absolutely, yes. This would be good for teaching poetry and visual with a civics/current events focus, and the audiobook performance could dovetail with performance poetry techniques and aural aspects of poetry.

❤❤❤❤❤

Thank you to Libro.fm and Simon & Schuster Audio for providing an early copy of the audiobook version through their ALC program.

Content Warnings

More...