The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead is a short, but powerful book. I really liked Whitehead's novel, The Underground Railroad, and The Nickel Boys did not disappoint me.
The story is based on a real place that ran as a reform school for boys for 111 years in Florida. Elwood was a young boy who had been inspired by the words of Martin Luther King Junior and was optimistic for his future as a young black man. He was a high school senior, taking a college class after school, when he hitched a ride with someone that he didn't know who stopped and picked him up. Unfortunately, the car had been stolen and they were picked up by the police. Elwood was sent to the Nickel Academy. It was a segregated school and black boys were not treated well, to put it mildly. It was the deep South and Jim Crow was alive and thriving down there. Elwood was determined to get out of Nickel Academy as soon as possible by keeping his head down and doing his work better than others.
Elwood endured all that was involved with being at Nickel Academy...beatings, going without food, solitary, etc.. ,and felt lucky that he survived and didn't end up dead like many others who just disappeared in the night. Along his way, he made friends with some of the other boys there, especially one, Turner. It ended up that Turner kept Elwood's spirit alive.
This is a horrifying and disturbing book that is written beautifully. Colson Whitehead is truly a writer to be known for years to come.
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