Rising from the Ashes: Los Angeles, 1992. Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire
In the spring of 1992, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Los Angeles was torn apart. Thousands of fires were set, causing more than a billion dollars in damage. In neighborhoods abandoned by the police, protestors and storeowners exchanged gunfire. More than 12,000 people were arrested and 2,400 injured. Sixty-three died.
In Rising from the Ashes, award-winning author Paula Yoo draws on the experience of the city's Korean American community to narrate and illuminate this uprising, from the racism that created economically disadvantaged neighborhoods torn by drugs and gang-related violence, to the tensions between the city's minority communities. At its heart are the stories of three lives and three families: those of Rodney King; of Latasha Harlins, a Black teenager shot and killed by a Korean American storeowner; and Edward Jae Song Lee, a Korean American man killed in the unrest. Woven throughout, and set against a minute-by-minute account of the uprising, are the voices of dozens others: police officers, firefighters, journalists, business owners, and activists whose recollections give texture and perspective to the events of those five days in 1992 and their impact over the years that followed.
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Paula Yoo is an author and screenwriter whose children's books for Lee & Low include Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds, Shining Star, and several titles in the Confetti Kids series. Her titles have been recognized by the International Reading Association, the Texas Bluebonnet Award Masterlist, and Lee & Low's New Voices Award. She and her husband live in Los Angeles, California, where she works in television. You can visit her online at paulayoo.com.
Yoo's message of empathy, progress, and resilience following tragedy prove resonant in this moving account that remains relevant to contemporary society, in which smartphones have replaced camcorders in individuals' quest to expose police brutality and systemic racism.-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"
Yoo offers a grim and well-researched account of an event that teen readers may have heard of, but likely do not know about with any detail... Dozens of interviews and quotes are seamlessly integrated to make a flowing and compelling narrative.-- "Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)"
Using extensive research and original reporting, Yoo creates deeply humanizing portraits of King; Harlins; Edward Jae Song Lee, a young man killed trying to protect a pizza parlor; and their families... A powerful and compelling history book that shows how the past still affects the present.-- "Horn Book Magazine (starred review)"
Yoo offers a complex and nuanced look at racial inequities, the war on drugs, and policing. The impossible task of distilling years of conflict and turmoil into a condensed space is achieved with grace and representation... An important, balanced text for collections working to build digestible historical titles related to race and America.-- "School Library Journal (starred review)"
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