TELL IT TRUE

A 15-year-old journalist gets a schooling in the power—and responsibility—of the press.

Setting up and then deftly tweaking expectations the way he did in his debut, Atty at Law (2020), Lockette pitches self-styled “brainy rebel” Lisa Rives into a whirl of hard choices and gut checks after she takes over editorship of her school’s paper as, mostly, a favor to her bestie (and the paper’s only other employee), Preethy Narend. Her first (but far from last) lesson in journalism’s hazards and rewards comes after she asks the two candidates for class president to identify with a political party. Her question recasts the election as a contest between a dedicated do-gooder focused on sexual equality in school sports and a Donald Trump mini-me—who, this being red-state Alabama—wins in a landslide. But Lisa has much bigger fish to fry after discovering that state law seemingly gives her the right to attend a convicted killer’s upcoming execution. Could she go? Should she? The blowback both in and beyond school when news of her formal request gets out includes national attention, a quick suspension, and, toughest of all, conflict with Preethy. But Lisa finds some unexpected allies, notably her mom, who turns out to be far more than the shallow stereotype her Southern belle persona suggests. The cast defaults to White, excepting Preethy’s Indian family and a minor Black character.

Wry, engrossing, even occasionally funny—right up to a gut-wrenching capper.