Review: Tristan Strong Keeps Punching by Kwame Mbalia
Tristan Strong Keeps Punching is the finale of the Tristan Strong trilogy.
This is such a great end to this series. We get Tristan interacting with his family, his community, and all the wonderful power folks who we got to know in the previous two books.
This story does an excellent job of engaging with grief, anger, generational trauma, and community building. These themes are explored in a very age-appropriate way, I absolutely recommend these books to children. Mbalia clearly writes in a way that respects the intelligence of children. In this book he engages with history even more than previous books, he uses his story so deftly to engage with Black American history.
I really loved how compelling this book was to read. I was glued to this story. Mbalia is so excellent at writing action and adventure and making sure it is deeply emotionally compelling on top of being incredibly engaging.
I gave this book four stars.
