''Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks'' is a young adult novel written by

Jason Reynolds Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an ea ...

, illustrated by Alexander Nabaum, and published October 8, 2019 by

Atheneum Books Atheneum Books was a New York City publishing house established in 1959 by Alfred A. Knopf, Jr., Simon Michael Bessie and Hiram Haydn. Simon & Schuster has owned Atheneum properties since its acquisition of Macmillan in 1994 and it created Athene ...

. The book is a ''New York Times'' best seller,

National Book Award for Young People's Literature The National Book Award for Young People's Literature is one of five annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation (NBF) to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers".< ...

finalist (2019),

Coretta Scott King Award The Coretta Scott King Award is an annual award presented by the Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table, part of the American Library Association (ALA). Named for Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., this award rec ...

honor book (2020), and Carnegie Medal recipient (2021).

Reception

''Look Both Ways'' is a ''New York Times'' best seller. The book received starred reviews from ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

,'' ''

School Library Journal ''School Library Journal'' (''SLJ'') is an American monthly magazine containing reviews and other articles for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, with ...

'', ''

Booklist ''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is av ...

,'' ''

Horn Book ''The Horn Book Magazine'', founded in Boston in 1924, is the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children's literature. It began as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony Miller and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietres ...

'', and ''

Kirkus ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'', as well as a positive review from ''

Shelf Awareness Shelf Awareness is an American publishing company that produces two electronic publications/newsletters focused on bookselling, books and book reviews. Overview With offices in Seattle, Washington, and Montclair, New Jersey, ''Shelf Awareness' ...

''. ''Booklist'''s Ronny Khuri referred to the book as "storytelling at its finest, a true masterpiece." ''Kirkus Reviews'' noted, "The entire collection brims with humor, pathos, and the heroic struggle to grow up." ''Publishers Weekly'' agreed with the sentiment, stating that "each story rings with emotional authenticity and empathy, and not a small amount of rib-tickling humor offsets the sometimes bittersweet realities of the characters’ lives." Kyla Paterno of ''Shelf Awareness'' called the book "an unconventional, clever exploration of the secret trials and tribulations of middle schoolers," noting that the "connected and intertwining tales are not neatly contained nor completed at the end, but rather left ambiguous, allowing readers to decide what happens next." The audiobook, narrated by Heather Alicia Simms,

Bahni Turpin Bahni Turpin (born June 4, 1962 in Pontiac, Michigan) is an American audiobook narrator and stage and screen actor based out of Los Angeles. Her audiobook career includes some of the most popular and critically-acclaimed books in recent years, incl ...

, and

January LaVoy January LaVoy (born in Trumbull, Connecticut) is an American actress and audiobook narrator. As an actress, she is most recognized as Noelle Ortiz on the ABC daytime drama '' One Life to Live''. LaVoy made her Broadway debut in the Broadway pr ...

and others, received a starred review from ''Booklist'', who noted, e readers reflect

he characters' He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

bravado and ethnicity. They also give them vulnerability and surprising grit as they face everyday problems." "Each of Reynolds's characters is so highly developed and memorable that they are easily noticed as background players in the others' vignettes. " Shelf Awareness ''Look Both Ways'' was named one of the best children's books of the year by ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

,''

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

Chicago Public Library The Chicago Public Library (CPL) is the public library system that serves the City of Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. It consists of 81 locations, including a central library, two regional libraries, and branches distributed throughout the ...

, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

,'' ''

TIME Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

,'' ''

The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was ...

,'' the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature, ''School Library Journal'', and ''Publishers Weekly.''

Accolades

References

{{Jason Reynolds 2020 American novels 2020 children's books American children's novels Atheneum Books books Carnegie Medal in Literature winning works Books by Jason Reynolds