All You Have to Do

by Autmn Allen; Kokila/Penguin Random House. August, 2023
An advanced reader’s copy was used for this review.

Autumn Allen edits picture books and board books as a senior editor at Barefoot Books. She also teaches children’s literature at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her graduate studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education along with her practice as an educator in community settings inform her interest in children’s literature as a tool of cultural transmission and as a potential site of cultural transformation. Allen writes to create works that celebrate the centuries of history and influence of Islam in the United States. All You Have to Do is Autmn Allen debut novel.

All You Have to Do is a novel told in alternating first person voices of several different characters, primarily Kevin and Gibran. Both are young, Black Muslim men. Kevin (Gibran’s uncle) tells his story as a college student in the 1960s who is determined to stop Columbia University (the school he’s attending) from displacing more lower income Blacks from their neighborhood. Kevin, living in the 1990s, wants his private, predominantly white high school (PWI) to give him and other Black male students at the school permission to attend the Million March in Washington DC. The aspirations these young men have and the limits placed upon them serve as a backdrop for everything that has come to define them, and their quests for liberation. Gibran is immediately confronted by unchanging, western academic standards.

“My admission and scholarship [early admission and full ride to Howard University] depend on my successful high school graduation, of course. For anyone else, that should be easy. But, for me, with one strike left? It’s like they’re holding the door open waiting for me to walk right out. (p. 12)

All he has to do is graduate.

His mother, Dawn – an educator, Afrocentrist, and former Black revolutionary – has placed her son in an PWI for his high school education making that one thing more than challenging.

Kevin and his sister, Dawn, became activists for the cause of Black freedom in their growing up years. Their father’s backstory is provided in a way that will allow for good debate about how Blacks and whites can collaborate to further justice and equality.  Kevin comes to struggle with that concern as well. Allen writes about so many issues in ways that are faced in real people’s daily lives that it fits together. It’s so seamless in reminding us how Black people in general, Black Muslim people in particular live, that it can catch those who know as well as those who don’t and make us think. Kevin and Gibran’s character arcs has me re-considering coming of age for young Black men and how it’s traditionally represented in literature. I’m still processing this thought, hopefully others will comment on this.

What works: Allen explores numerous issues through her character’s experiences. Gibran is filled with an anger that is easily set off when he’s at school. Some may read this as stereotypical black rage. She uses generational and systemic issues to justify this rage while at the same time, indicating the detriment of this unfocused emotion. Here are Kevin and Gibran, a generation apart, tackling the same issues of class, race, education, and inequality though the circumstances have changed. And, she’s writing of the same issues for the next generation.

Kevin has to decide whether to support a coalition with white revolutionaries who are protesting the Vietnam War. Can their interests intersect in a way that benefits both groups? I liked the depth and range given to both Black and white characters. Christopher, a young Black student, was no doubt my favorite character/device and I really hope he has a different outcome in the final version of the book.

Allen writes to promote Black Muslim heritage and culture in the US. She does this through her characters who honor rituals and practices, such as not drinking alchohol, and who take the time to note Black Muslim civil rights leaders.

What doesn’t work: This story is told from multiple, alternating perspectives. Even within chapters, the narrator changes. This can be confusing, particularly when neither font, diction, nor vocabulary work to distinguish the voices. Women in book received less that supporting status. Their lives are not explored. They all seem to exist to set limits on men, to say when enough is enough, but not to make meaningful contributions to their communities even though they are part of the movements. This is a short exchange between Gibran and his mother as he’s preparing to leave for school.

“Mom finally releases me. “My baby,” she says. Her eyes crease with worry. “Almost a man. I can’t believe you’re about to be eighteen.” Another sight, then she pokes my chest with each command. “Be good. Be Careful. Take those [headphones] off your head the moment you step onto campus.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I joke. (p. 7)

Here she reminds this young man that he is her child, that he is not a man, and how he must confine his behavior. In response, he doesn’t take her seriously.

Pass it OR Grab it? I have to admit that for me, this wasn’t a compelling read. The story dragged, and I often questioned why I was still reading. As rich as the content is in the book, it took me weeks to finish reading. I don’t know if this was my problem with the book but, I think we’re trained to expect books that focus our attention on a specific problem, and then solves that problem. Allen doesn’t do that. She gives us a story for those interested in considering contemporary history, issues of social justice, and matters of Black liberation, and she provides no solutions. Rather, she makes us think. It’s not a book for everyone.