(London Guardian) A young adult novel inspired by both the Black Lives Matter movement and the rapper Tupac Shakur has won the Waterstones children’s book prize.
Angie Thomas’s debut The Hate U Give won the £5,000 prize, an accolade decided entirely by booksellers, at a ceremony in London on 22 March. Following Starr, a teenage girl split between the poverty of her childhood and the affluent high school she attends, The Hate U Give explores racism and the aftermath of police violence when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of an unarmed friend at the hands of an officer.
The novel takes its title from a quote from the late Shakur, who once said that Thug Life – the name of his group and only studio album – stood for the phrase: “The Hate U Give Little Infants F**ks Everybody.”
