The fact that Esperanza is so used to them and so well-versed in how to respond helps to highlight both how regular they are and what a debilitating and significant effect they have on his life. Indeed, he collapses within the first chapters of the book after being triggered by a protest against the police murdering another unarmed person of color. Agent: DongWon Song, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.Since witnessing his father’s murder six years earlier, Moss’s life has been marked by trauma, manifesting in anxiety, nightmares, and especially panic attacks. Oshiro deftly captures the simmering rage that ultimately transforms Moss from a quiet teenager to a committed activist against a brutal, menacing system. This event and several police assaults on students lead to organizing, with the community’s fear building to a crescendo in a planned walkout gone awry. In one improbable event that affects the story’s plausibility, a boy with metal pins in his knee suffers a severe injury as a result of being forced to walk through a school metal detector. Yet violent incidents continue to threaten the community’s well-being. A warm, mutually respectful relationship with his mother, an extended network of friends of diverse genders, sexual orientations, and family makeup, and a budding romance with Javier, a cute Latino comic book artist, all indicate a hopeful future. Sixteen-year-old Moss Jeffries, a gay African-American student attending run-down West Oakland High School, has experienced panic attacks since police shot his father six years earlier. Oshiro, creator of the Mark Does Stuff website, takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster in this powerful and timely debut novel that conveys a community’s bitter experience living within a culture of white supremacy.
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