"People say, That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But they are wrong. What doesn't kill you doesn't kill you. That's all you get. Sometimes, you just have to hope that's enough.”
– Tayari Jones

 

 

 

In This Kit You’ll Find:

• 3 copies of Beyond These Walls by Tony Platt
• 3 copies of Infinite Hope by Anthony Graves
• 3 copies of An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• 3 copies of The Innocent Manby John Grisham
• 3 copies of There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce by Morgan Parker
• 1 copy of discussion questions for An American Marriage (you may keep)
• 1 copy of discussion questions for The Innocent Man (you may keep)
• Book sign-up sheet to keep track of books (you may keep)

Themes for Discussion:

• Beyond These Walls: History of the criminal justice system, punishment, racism in U.S. criminal justice system, U.S. crime, imprisonment
• Infinite Hope: Wrongful conviction, memoir, fight for justice, fairness, law, human equality, societal racism
• An American Marriage: Marriage, false imprisonment, extramarital affairs, racism, African-American families, loss, consequences
• The Innocent Man: True crime, murder trials, judicial errors, corruption, malicious accusations
• There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce: poetry, women of color, strong women, popular culture, oppression

 

 

About the Book:

Beyond These Walls: A groundbreaking investigation into the roots of the American criminal justice system to link the broken practices of the Trump administration to failures in past racial, gender, and class reforms. (Novelist)

Infinite Hope: An argument against the death penalty through one man's personal story. It is about a man enduring life on death row year after year when he knows that he is one hundred percent innocent and that his exoneration is unlikely. (Novelist)

An American Marriage: When her new husband is arrested and imprisoned for a crime she knows he did not commit, a rising artist takes comfort in a longtime friendship, only to encounter unexpected challenges in resuming her life when her husband's sentence is suddenly overturned. (Novelist)

The Innocent Man: The real-life case of Ron Williamson, a mentally ill former baseball player who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the 1982 murder of a 21 year old woman in his Oklahoma hometown. (Novelist)

There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce: A brash, risque collection of poems that explores what it means to be a black woman in contemporary American culture. (Washington Post)

 

 Request Kit Here

 

Further Your Discussion:

• Listen: Anthony Graves, author of Infinite Hope, discusses his experience in the courtroom and whether or not his case has brought about positive change within the criminal justice system in this podcast Interview:

 

• Watch: The poet, Morgan Parker, reading poems from her collection, There Are Things More Beautiful Than Beyonce:
  

• Inform: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime offers solutions and information for prison reform including alternatives to imprisonment.
  
  

 

• Read & Explore: The blog of Tony Platt, author of Beyond These Walls, and professor of American history, public policy, and social sciences: