True Crime Book Club - Past Titles: Jan. 2023

One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter. One moment that changes both of their lives forever. 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 crime-plagued 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.

1. The beginning of the book expresses the desire to do something to stop the events that are about to take place. What might a passenger on the bus have done to change things? What can any of us do to prevent incidents like the one that happened on the 57 bus?
2. The book is about an alleged hate crime. Who in the story exhibits hate? Who exhibits love?
3. Some people argue that bias crimes shouldn’t be on the books at all and that only deeds should be against the law, rather than the motive behind the deed.  Others argue that bias crimes are worse than other crimes because they arouse fear among an entire group of people. What do you think? Is it important to prosecute hate crimes? Why or why not?
4. At one point Richard’s family members relate the case of Donald Williams Jr., a young black man who was bullied by his white roommates in a university dormitory. Like some of Richard’s friends and family said about what Richard did, Williams’s roommates defended their actions as a “prank.” Do you think the two cases are similar or different? What’s the difference between a prank and bullying, and between a prank and a hate crime? Is there a difference?
5. Did Sasha’s family’s attitude toward Richard surprise you? Did you agree or disagree with their reaction? Why?
6. Do you think Richard was being honest with the police when he told them his reason for setting Sasha’s skirt on fire? If not, why do you think he lied?
7. What do you think is the goal of criminal punishment? Why do we put people in prison? Do you think it’s an effective strategy for reducing crime?
8. What does it mean to forgive? Jasmine tells Richard to “forgive, but don’t forget,” while Richard counters that you have to forget in order to forgive. Which do you think is true?
9. Who did you identify with or understand in the book? Who was harder for you to relate to?
10. In the chapter “Court Date,” members of Richard’s family talk to the media for the first time. Why do you think people took their statements the way they did? What role does the media play in shaping how people see criminal cases?
11. Do you think that Slater wrote in different voices for certain reasons? Why start the book from Sasha’s point of view? Why tell the trial scenes from the viewers’ perspectives instead of Richard’s?

• New York Times bestselling author Dashka Slater has been telling stories since she could talk. 
  • An award-winning journalist, she is also the author of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction for children and adults. 
    • Her children’s picture books include Escargot, winner of the Wanda Gag Read-Aloud Award; A Book for Escargot, an Indie bestseller; Dangerously Ever After, which is currently being made into an animated film by Fantasiation Studios; and The Antlered Ship, a Junior Library Guild selection and a Parents Choice Recommended book that received four starred reviews and was named Best Picture Book of the year by both Amazon and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. 
    • Her middle-grade Feylawn Chronicles series begins with The Book of Fatal Errors, which BookPage calls “A seamless combination of fantasy and mystery wrapped around a classical coming-of-age narrative,” and will continue in 2022 with The Book of Stolen Time.
• Slater was the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts 
• Slater grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts but has spent most of her adult life in Oakland, California, where she is always working on far too many writing projects.

Other Writings:

The Wishing Box

Lights, Camera, Alcatraz

Wild Blue

Baby Shoes

Firefighters in the Dark

The Sea Serpent and Me

Dangerously Ever After

Escargot

The Antlered Ship

The 57 Bus

The Book of Fatal Errors

A Book for Escargot

Escargot and the Search for Spring

The Book of Stolen Time

Love, Escargot

Accountable

• Dashka’s best-selling true crime narrative, "The 57 Bus", has received numerous accolades
  • the Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association
  • the Beatty Award from the California Library Association
  • a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor 
• on its own steadily paced journey, and nearly two years after FSG published it in October 2017, the book landed on the September 8 New York Times bestsellers list. 
  • Though Macmillan declined to share sales numbers, the publisher released a 50,000 first printing and as it picked up steam, the publisher has gone back to press 14 times.