About this item
A walk-the-walk, talk-the-talk, hands-on, say-it-loud handbook for activist kids who want to change the world!Inspired by Abbie Hoffman's radical classic, Steal This Book, author Alexandra Styron's stirring call for resistance and citizen activism will be clearly heard by young people who don't accept "it is what it is," who want to make sure everybody gets an equal piece of the American pie, and who know that the future of the planet is now. Styron's irreverent and informative primer on how to make a difference is organized into three sections: The Why, The What, and The How. The book opens with a personal essay and a historic look at civil disobedience and teenage activism in America. That's followed by a deep dive into several key issues: climate change, racial justice, women's rights, LGBTQIA rights, immigration, religious understanding, and intersectionality.
About the Author
Alexandra Styron is the author of the best-selling memoir Reading My Father, All The Finest Girls, a novel, and the forthcoming YA book Steal This Country: A Handbook for Resistance, Persistence, and Fixing Almost Everything. Her work has appeared in several anthologies as well as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair, among other publications. A graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University, Alexandra is a professor of creative writing in the MFA program at Hunter College. She lives with her husband and two children in Brooklyn, New York. When Al, as she is known, was a kid, she watched her parents come and go from her family's house in Connecticut, always of somewhere to speak or march or investigate how to make the world a better place. Al's father, the renowned author William Styron, frequently used his public stature to address issues of social justice. Her mother Rose joined the board of Amnesty International when it was still a new organization and over the years became a leading human rights activist. When Al went off to college and got involved in the movement to divest from South Africa, the activist hook was set.Throughout her adult years, Al has been involved in various causes, while writing and teaching and starting a family. But it wasn't until recently, as her kids became teenagers during a time of real turmoil in America, that she decided to combine writing and activism into one pursuit. Steal This Country: A Handbook for Resistance, Persistence, and Fixing Almost Everything, is for teens who are fired up and ready to rumble. Al is hoping her new book will be a tool they can use to go out and change the world.
