Rising from the Ashes: Los Angeles, 1992. Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire -- Paula Yoo, Hardcover

In the spring of 1992, after a jury returned not guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Los Angeles was torn apart. Thousands of fires were set, causing more than a billion dollars in damage. In neighborhoods abandoned by the police, protestors and storeowners exchanged gunfire. More than 12,000 people were arrested and 2,400 injured. Sixty-three died.

In Rising from the Ashes, award-winning author Paula Yoo draws on the experience of the city's Korean American community to narrate and illuminate this uprising, from the racism that created economically disadvantaged neighborhoods torn by drugs and gang-related violence, to the tensions between the city's minority communities. At its heart are the stories of three lives and three families: those of Rodney King; of Latasha Harlins, a Black teenager shot and killed by a Korean American storeowner; and Edward Jae Song Lee, a Korean American man killed in the unrest. Woven throughout, and set against a minute-by-minute account of the uprising, are the voices of dozens others: police officers, firefighters, journalists, business owners, and activists whose recollections give texture and perspective to the events of those five days in 1992 and their impact over the years that followed.

Author: Paula Yoo
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Published: 05/07/2024
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.59lbs
Size: 9.29h x 6.27w x 0.89d
ISBN: 9781324030904
Age Range: 13-17

Review Citation(s):
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 03/01/2024
Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2024
Booklist 04/01/2024 pg. 33
Publishers Weekly 04/22/2024
Horn Book Magazine 05/01/2024 pg. 163