The Talk

The Talk

Darrin Bell

#2634 of 3,809 books · #945 in Biography & Memoir

Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction (2024).

The Talk won the NAACP Image Award in Outstanding Graphic Novels, an Alex Award from the American Library Association, and the Libby Award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel of the Year, was named The Year's Best Graphic Novel by Publishers Weekly, one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Best Books of 2023, one of NPR's Books We Love, one of Kirkus' Best 2023 Books, one of the Washington Post's 10 best graphic novels of 2023, one of TIME Magazine's Must-Read Books of the Year, one of School Library Journal's Best Graphic Novels of 2023, and one of The Guardian's Best Graphic Novels of 2023. Darrin Bell was six years old when his mother told him he couldn't have a realistic water gun. She said she feared for his safety, that police tend to think of little Black boys as older and less innocent than they really are. Through evocative illustrations and sharp humor, Bell examines how The Talk shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood. While coming of age in Los Angeles—and finding a voice through cartooning—Bell becomes painfully aware of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and police officers and thus of his mortality. Drawing attention to the brutal murders of African Americans and showcasing revealing insights and cartoons along the way, he brings us up to the moment of reckoning when people took to the streets protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And now Bell must decide whether he and his own six-year-old son are ready to have The Talk.