Dreamland Burning

by Jennifer Latham

When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family's property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the past... and the present.

Nearly one hundred years earlier, a misguided violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what's right the night Tulsa burns.

One of the deadliest race riots in US history happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on a hot 1921 night when the economically and culturally thriving black community of Greenwood was burned to the ground. Dreamland Burning gives voice to this little-known moment in history, crossing historical fiction with a cold case mystery in a story that makes bold statements about how racial tensions have changed --- or haven't --- in nearly 100 years. Jennifer Latham brings her unique talent to this well-researched project, delivering a voice-driven, fast-paced, compelling read.

• ISBN10: 0316384933
• ISBN13: 9780316384933
• Publish Date: 23 February 2017 (first published 21 February 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
• Imprint: Little, Brown Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[readingwithwrin]

"The lives that ended that night mattered. It was a mistake for this city to forget, and it's even bigger one to pretend everything's fine now. Black men and women are dying today for the same reasons they did in 1921. And we have to call that out, Rowan. Every single time."

Starting this book I knew it was about Rowan a modern day teenager and a William a teenager from the 1920's.
What I wasn't expecting was how the struggles that William saw and dealt with himself regarding racism are still present today. I will admit though most of the time it felt like William was just treated like a white young man, by everyone despite him being half Osage Indian. Which was little difficult to believe at times when you consider where he lived.
Then when you see Rowan's story and how her parents are very successful and have really made a name for themselves yet are still feeling the pressures of racism. It just really shows how we as a country still have so much that needs to change.

"For the first time in a long time, I thought I knew where I was going. Like maybe there was something useful I could do with my life after all."
I honestly still want to read so much more of both of their stories. I loved how William grew and changed his opinion as the story went and he stopped letting himself just go with the flow of his "best friend". He really became his own person and it was so nice and I'll admit scary at times to see. It was so nice to see him become the person he did by the end of the book.
Rowan I'll admit had a little bit of spoiled child when I first started this book. Once she started investigating though and then working at her summer job, though she changed so much. She started to realize certain things at the same time I was and her portion of the book really made me re-evaluate how I think/feel about certain things. It just really made me realize things that I hadn't even thought about before.

"Pleased as I am that greenwood rebuilt, I'll always remember it the way I saw it first: Lights flickering on over the Dreamland Theater, families strolling along streets they'd built together. For on that warm spring night, it wasn't just a promise I beheld, but a thing real as bricks and mortar and hope."

Overall I have nothing, but good things to say about this book. Rowan's world was pretty realistic in my opinion for modern day, and Williams was fairly realistic on certain things.

I had no idea anything like this happened. It's book like these that always bring me back to loving historical fiction. The mix of present and past is so well done that I was invested in both story lines and needed/wanted to find out how exactly they would connect. And If all the questions I had from the past story line would be answered in the present story line.
I was not disappointed with the ending and I hope more books like this one start becoming popular and written.
Latham if you can please write more like this, because you did such an amazing job of keeping me on my toes with both story-lines, all while bringing something to my attention that had tried to be erased from history.

I would just like to apologize to everyone who has lost someone they cared about because of the awful actions that happened in this book and are still happening today. I will never be able to take away that pain, but I will gladly listen and learn from you, and try to make things better going into the future.


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[sug]

pros:

- rowan is a really good protagonist!!! i really like her character. she's smart, charming, and is a very believable teenager. her friendship with james is also really nice and i always appreciate characters in fiction that are like me.
- rowan's parents are also hella cool lol.
- the plot was really engaging and fun and i honestly was freaking out at the end of that one chapter when i thought joseph was going to get hurt.
- JOSEPH!!!! i loved joseph and ruby so much they were so delightful and my heart was going out for them i honestly wish they had their own pov chapters
- ruby is a little rascal and well-written annoying child characters are always appreciated
- great commentary on being biracial and how that coincides with visual oppression/personal self-discovery
- in general the pacing of this book was really good, i finished it in like three hours and i was engaged the entire time

cons:
- i am not sure if the author is mixed but i am making the assumption that she is white. i am a little tired of reading books by white authors on poc, especially black, issues. latham did a really good job with this book but i definitely would have been more comfortable had this been written by a different author.
- on that note, the amount of times some variation of the n-word was used lmaooooooooo if the author is indeed white.... ok
- i am not really that sold or happy with the whole "vernon is actually black" twist idk it works and its supposed to tie into geneva's whole "this is a black man" mystery but it feels a little rushed
- also for that matter, i liked will a lot and was happy with him as a character overall but i'm tired of white povs in books surrounding racial issues. i don't care if will was one of the "good whites". i really couldn't tell if the author wanted us to think that will was bigoted at the start or he was always like a good kid or something i think him being half-native was supposed to make us feel bad for the clarence situation but i felt like... idk my dudes the only reason he was nice to ruby was because she reminded him of his dead sister so that's a hmmmmmmmmm
- also the whole ordeal with will's dad like Yes we get it there are Good Whites this good white married an Indian woman what a good White like i know not all white people were kkk members in 1921 and there probably were a lot of people who sympathized with black people at the time but it's a little annoying considering that it comes off as being white savior-y especially near the end of the novel
- i liked arvin and rowan's relationship but it's probably the most underdeveloped part of the book. i think the author was trying to tie arvin's death into current racial issues and develop rowan as a character but it just felt completely disconnected from the rest of the book, especially with the very shoe-horned "arvin's aunt's friend is ruby goodhope's daughter" reveal. the book needed to be longer if it wanted to work in a plotline like that.
- i did really like this book i swear but i also feel like... hmmm... the usage of indigenous people in this book... not the best