Dashka Slater wrote The 57 Bus for teenagers, but her audience should also include parents…Slater doesn't apologize for Richard; she just asks us to consider where he came from and to question the ingrained prejudice of a legal system that eventually locked him up for five years.

A New York Time Bestseller
Stonewall Book Award—Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award Winner
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist
A Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book
A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)
A Velshi Banned Books Club Selection
A TAYSHAS Reading List Selection
School Library Journal Best LGBTQIA+ Book
A Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List Selection
An Illinois Teen Readers' Choice Award Nominee
A James Cook Honor Book for Diversity in Teen Literature
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Top Ten Book for Teens
California Library Association's Beatty Award Winner
An ILA Notable Book for a Global Society
An OLA Sequoyah Book Award Winner
A Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award Nominee
A Florida Teens Read Book List Selection
Green Mountain Book Award Winner
A Grand Canyon Reader Award Nominee

"A sensitive study of an incident wrapped up in so many modern conundrums." —The Financial Times

★ "The text shifts from straightforward reporting to lyrical meditations, never veering into oversentimentality or simple platitudes. Readers are bound to come away with deep empathy for both Sasha and Richard. VERDICT Slater artfully unfolds a complex and layered tale about two teens whose lives intersect with painful consequences." —School Library Journal, starred review

★ "With a journalist's eye for overlooked details, Slater does a masterful job debunking the myths of the hate-crime monster and the African-American thug, probing the line between adolescent stupidity and irredeemable depravity. Few readers will traverse this exploration of gender identity, adolescent crime, and penal racism without having a few assumptions challenged. An outstanding book that links the diversity of creed and the impact of impulsive actions to themes of tolerance and forgiveness." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ "Using details gleaned from interviews, social media, surveillance video, public records, and other sources, Slater skillfully conveys the complexities of both young people’s lives and the courage and compassion of their families, friends, and advocates, while exploring the challenges and moral ambiguities of the criminal justice system. This painful story illuminates, cautions, and inspires." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ "[A] multi-layered lesson on the healing power of humanity." —Shelf Awareness, starred review

"It is likely that this account will spark conversations, debates, and contemplation, perhaps leading readers to define for themselves what justice means." —VOYA

"A powerful story of class and race (Sasha is white), gender and identity, justice and mercy, love and hate. Slater has crafted a compelling true-crime story with ramifications for our most vulnerable youth." —The Horn Book

“This book challenged my views and it started a conversation in my house that I thought I’d never have. We all changed, at least in my house, because of this book.” —Kate Terbush, Burbank Leader

"Slater approaches both students’ perspectives with nuance and complexity, and while there are no easy answers in this narrative, her compassionate writing shows that there’s often more to the story than we see." —TIME Magazine

“A thought-provoking tale of class, race, gender, morality and forgiveness . . . ‘The 57 Bus’ will leave you with a hole in your heart and tears running down your cheeks. For a book about a horrible crime, the amount of love is remarkable.” —The Daily Californian

★ 2017-07-17
In the fall of 2013, on a bus ride home, a young man sets another student on fire.In a small private high school, Sasha, a white teen with Asperger's, enjoyed "a tight circle of friends," "blazed through calculus, linguistics, physics, and computer programming," and invented languages. Sasha didn't fall into a neat gender category and considered "the place in-between…a real place." Encouraged by parents who supported self-expression, Sasha began to use the pronoun they. They wore a skirt for the first time during their school's annual cross-dressing day and began to identify as genderqueer. On the other side of Oakland, California, Richard, a black teen, was "always goofing around" at a high school where roughly one-third of the students failed to graduate. Within a few short years, his closest friends would be pregnant, in jail, or shot dead, but Richard tried to stay out of real trouble. One fateful day, Sasha was asleep in a "gauzy white skirt" on the 57 bus when a rowdy friend handed Richard a lighter. With a journalist's eye for overlooked details, Slater does a masterful job debunking the myths of the hate-crime monster and the African-American thug, probing the line between adolescent stupidity and irredeemable depravity. Few readers will traverse this exploration of gender identity, adolescent crime, and penal racism without having a few assumptions challenged. An outstanding book that links the diversity of creed and the impact of impulsive actions to themes of tolerance and forgiveness. (Nonfiction. 14-18)

2018 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist, Short-listed
2018 Northern California Book Award, Winner
2017 School Library Journal Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2017 NYPL Books for the Teen Age, Long-listed
2017 CPL: Chicago Public Library Best of the Best, Long-listed
2017 School Library Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2017 Shelf Awareness Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2018 ALA Stonewall Book Award - Winner, Winner
2017 Washington Post Best Books of the Year, Long-listed
2018 Northern California Book Award Master List, Long-listed
2017 Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year, Long-listed