The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives (2017)

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives (2017) is a work of narrative nonfiction by Dashka Slater, a journalist and children’s book author. The book covers an event that happened on November 4, 2013, when two high school students were riding the same city bus and one set the other on fire.

The interaction between these two teenagers lasts just a matter of minutes, but the events that lead up to and follow the event are extraordinarily complex and provide all manner of insight into contemporary social and cultural mores.

Richard is 16, an African American youth from the “bad” side of Oakland, California. He is a troubled but well-intentioned kid trying to find a way out of the world in which he lives. Sasha is brilliant and precocious, the only child of doting parents. Sasha identifies as agender, choosing the pronouns they/their/theirs, and their progressive private high school provides a welcoming, nurturing atmosphere for them to explore their identity. But Sasha’s mother has long worried that her child may encounter some kind of violence; her worst fears come true when Sasha falls asleep on the way home from school one afternoon, their gauzy white skirt hanging over the edge of their seat.