Download PDF It Trevor Noah Born a Crime Stories from a South African Childhood Adapted for Young Readers Trevor Noah 9780525582168 Books

Product details Age Range 10 - 17 years Grade Level 5 - 6 Lexile Measure 780L (What's this?) Hardcover 304 pages Publisher Delacorte Books for Young Readers (April 9, 2019) Language English ISBN-10 0525582169

It Trevor Noah Born a Crime Stories from a South African Childhood Adapted for Young Readers Trevor Noah 9780525582168 Books Reviews

• Well done
• This is basically the same book as "Born a Crime" but with the cursing eliminated. It still has all the stories and the final basic points of his mother being his hero. It's a wonderful book and loses almost nothing with it being made for younger people. There is still the story of "Hitler" (which is absolutely hysterical!). The book is set up with an explanation of Apartheid for young people to get the basic idea of why Noah was "born a crime". It's a great educational book. It should be in every school and every library as a "necessary read". SUPERB. For children between the ages of 10-15.
• I confess I first listened to this book on Audible ahead of Trevor Noah visiting Seattle. His reflections were equally poignant and hilarious. He did an excellent job of building context at every turn for the unknowing reader, such as myself. What does anyone raised in a America really know of the legacy of Apartheid in Sourh Africa or the common day experiences of those living in a system that was designed to repressively beat them down?
  
  I remember listening to the book and wanting to share it with my own son (at the time nearly 8) but I couldn’t because the themes were too far removed from his childhood reality (though not mine) and there was enough adult language that I would have been uncomfortable sharing the book with him.
  
  When I saw this adapted version release, I jumped on it.
  
  As I skimmed and re-read and looked for the stories that most captured my attention, I noticed the only things missing were the adult words. Pretty sure I remember an F-bomb dropped at the end of the story about his crew at the Jewish school, but it was absent here.
  
  The themes of the story stayed intact and are just as poignant as in the audio book.
  
  When it says “adapted for young readers” I would say somewhere near the 14 or 15 year old mark. Too many of the stories are built around much later years in Trevor’s childhood. I think readers need to have some functioning awareness of world geography and 20th century world history to appreciate much of the contextual humor given. That said, MANY of the details of his stories are very relatable to the awkward years of adolescence many kids go through.
  
  Going even further, this story is deeply inspiring for kids who experience domestic violence and don’t yet have the age or vocabulary to fully reflect upon and understand the ‘why’ or ‘what’ is happening to them or around them. I found it to carry an overarching message of empowerment to persist and flex and find your way and make it even if it takes several go arounds.
  
  If I taught 10th or 11th grade high school history or some kind of social studies, I would seriously consider building a unit around this book.
• (I didn't read the book this one was adapted from and I don't know anything about Trevor Noah other than what I read from this book so please keep those two things when I review this book.) I loved this book. I loved everything about it. I loved Trevor Noah's writing voice. It feels very natural and I feel like I know him. I loved the way he tells his story and how by telling his story his readers learn a lot about South African history and history of apartheid. As an American all I knew about was that it was segregation between blacks and whites. It was so much more than that. I love that there are times this is really funny. There are times it is really tragic. There are times it is heart-warming. I love how Trevor Noah just tells the story and doesn't try to sugarcoat his behavior. We see things from his perspective and then later we see them from his renewed perspective. I appreciate he never has a chip on his shoulder about his background. I love his portrayal of his mother and his father and stepfather and his friends. It feels like I know them too. I love the stories he chose to tell in this memoir - the romance ones, the pirated CD stories; his school stories, the stories of his shoplifting. I'd love to meet his mother -- a mother of great faith and love. She impresses me. And Trevor Noah impresses me as a person in this book. This is a great book for young people and adults to read. So much history. So much societal commentary. So much stuff about race relations. So much about poverty and wealth. This book is filled with so much. I recommend this book to everyone. I hope you will read this whether you've heard of Trevor Noah before or not, whether you are one of his fans or not.
• Even though Trevor Noah grew up relatively poor in South Africa, it seems that the story of his youth isn’t much different from growing up relatively poor in parts of the United States. What makes his youth so decisively different is that he had the strength to go on when it would have been much easier to surrender to his fate than find a better life. I mean can you imagine that when he was born, it was a crime for his black mother to marry his white father? Just his existence was cause for his mother to be unable to walk with him down the street. He didn’t fit in with the whites, the blacks or even really the colored people since he was brought up to question authority.
  
  Noah talks about his special treatment because of his white father but more importantly, how his mother fought to make him better. A lot of the stories that he tells make you reflect on how being poor and without education can doom a life. All of the stories are told with humor and a part of “how did I survive” type awe. I really enjoyed this and had no idea that his life was so full of horror since what he presents on television is completely different from his background. This is definitely a feel-good book.