This book is not light. The anecdotes included are true stories of injustice and of redemption. The contents are never graphic, but there is troubling mention of rape, murder, violence, and abuse.
All said, I highly recommend the book.
Author Bryan Stevenson is a black lawyer whose adult life is dedicated to mitigation and mercy. Stevenson fights mass incarceration, unjust prison conditions (especially for children), and racial injustice. This book exposes much about the legal system and even more about humanity. It is powerfully redemptive.
Samples (taken from page 290) —
“We’ve become so fearful and vengeful that we’ve thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak . . . we’ve pressured [victims of violent crime] to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute . . . We’ve submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible.”
“But simply punishing the broken . . . only ensures that they remain broken, and we do too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.”
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done”
“When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can’t otherwise see; you hear things you can’t otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us.” (p. 290)
Read, read read.
42 tells the story of Jackie Robinson (first black man in Major League Baseball), Branch Rickey, (Brooklyn Dodgers executive), and Wendell Smith, t(he black journalist who chronicled Jackie’s career).
The title reveals the plot: it’s about a single dad who decides to buy a zoo. The young family has an adventure, and some hearts are healed. No crazy plot twists, just shameless feel-goods and a lot of animals.*
It is clean, entertaining, and inspiring…our recipe for a worthwhile film.