OPL Foundation to host Angie Thomas

The Omaha Public Library Foundation will proudly host its sixth annual fundraiser featuring "The Hate U Give, opens a new window" author Angie Thomas, opens a new window on Tuesday, October 1, 2019, at the Institute for the Culinary Arts on the Metropolitan Community College Fort Omaha Campus, opens a new window.

Presented by Lozier, event proceeds from Between the Lines with Angie Thomas, opens a new window will support Omaha Public Library programs and services. Among those programs is Omaha Reads, opens a new window, which featured "The Hate U Give" as its 2018 selection. 

Thomas is the recipient of the 2018 William C. Morris Award and the 2018 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and was nominated for the Michael L. Printz Award and the Coretta Scott King Award. She is the inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant, awarded by We Need Diverse Books. Born, raised, and still residing in Jackson, Mississippi—and a former teen rapper—she holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Belhaven University and an unofficial degree in hip hop.

For its “pointed examinations of gun violence, racial profiling, and political activism,” Entertainment Weekly called "The Hate U Give" “the best—and most important—book you’ll read [in 2017]." John Green, author of "The Fault in Our Stars" called the book “a stunning, brilliant, gut-wrenching novel that will be remembered as a classic of our time.” The YA title was also adapted into a major motion picture in 2018.

"The Hate U Give" explores the world of sixteen-year-old Starr Carter: a girl who walks a careful line between her upper-crust prep school and the poverty-stricken neighborhood where she grew up. But when she witnesses a police officer shooting her best friend Khalil—an unarmed youth—Starr is plunged into even more uncertainty. Thomas’ second novel, "On the Come up," is about what it means to be young and black in America, when freedom of speech isn’t always free. 

Previous authors featured at the annual fundraiser include Margaret Atwood (2014), Wally Lamb (2015), Tobias Wolff (2016), Hope Jahren (2017), and Amy Thielen (2018).

Visit the OPL Foundation website, opens a new window or call (402) 444-4589 to purchase tickets.