Summary
Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys is the story of Elwood Curtis, a young Black activist from Tallahassee, Florida. Set during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Elwood is arrested on his way to attend his first day of college. He is then sentenced to Nickel Academy, a reformatory school where the accused receive “physical, intellectual, and moral training,” and are “restored to the community with purpose and character fitting for a good citizen.” Once Elwood arrives at Nickel, however, he quickly realizes that there’s more to the school than meets the eye. At Nickel, Elwood is forced to survive in a racially divided system created to break him down. Though the school is no walk in the park for any of the boys, the Black boys at Nickel are treated particularly harshly. Elwood’s only saving grace comes in the form of the other Black boys at Nickel, as well as his friend Turner, who sees Elwood’s ideas about hope between the races as a pointless cause. At the end of the novel, Elwood makes a risky life-altering decision that not only changes the course of his life but that of others at Nickel Academy as well. Fiction, 224 pages
Kit Includes:
- Information about Palm Desert Library Book Club Kits & how they work.
- Information about the author and a book summary.
- Discussion questions to accompany the book.
- 10 copies of the book
- Book Club Kits may be borrowed for 8 weeks