The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives

A NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller

Stonewall Book Award Winner

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)

The riveting New York Times bestseller and Stonewall Book Award winner that will make you rethink all you know about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment. Artfully, compassionately, and expertly told, Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus is a must-read nonfiction book that chronicles the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California.

Two ends of the same line. Two sides of the same crime.

If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a Black teen, lived in the economically challenged flatlands and attended a large public one.

Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight. But in The 57 Bus, award-winning journalist Dashka Slater shows that what might at first seem like a simple matter of right and wrong, justice and injustice, victim and criminal, is something more complicated--and far more heartbreaking.

More Accolades and Awards for The 57 Bus:
A TIME Magazine Best YA Book of All Time
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist
A Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book Winner
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist

Don't miss Dashka Slater's newest propulsive and thought-provoking nonfiction book, Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed, the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner which National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi hails as "powerful, timely, and delicately written."

Author: Dashka Slater
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
Published: 10/17/2017
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.70w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780374303235
Audience: Young Adult

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 6.5
Point Value: 8
Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus
Quiz #/Name: 192475 / 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives


Award: Stonewall Book Award - Winner
Award: Yalsa Award for Excellence in Non-Fiction for Young Adults - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
School Library Journal 07/01/2017 pg. 109
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2017 pg. 177
Publishers Weekly 08/14/2017
Booklist 09/15/2017 pg. 44
Voice of Youth Advocates 10/01/2017 - Recommended - Readable
BookPage 11/01/2017
Shelf Awareness 11/10/2017
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 11/01/2017
Shelf Awareness 12/19/2017
Horn Book Magazine 01/01/2018 pg. 106
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2018 pg. 177 - Superior,Well Above Average

About the Author
Award-winning journalist Dashka Slater has written for such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Salon, and Mother Jones. Her New York Times-bestselling young-adult true crime narrative, The 57 Bus, has received numerous accolades, including the Stonewall Book Award, the California Book Award, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor. It was a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist and an LA Times Book Award Finalist, in addition to receiving four starred reviews and being named to more than 20 separate lists of the year's best books, including ones compiled by The Washington Post, the New York Public Library, and School Library Journal. In 2021, The 57 Bus was named to TIME magazine's list of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. The author of fifteen books of fiction and nonfiction for children and adults, Dashka teaches in Hamline University's MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults program. She lives and writes in Oakland, California.