Coates’s “Between the World and Me” is written as a direct address between an African American father and his son—and not just a generic African American father and son, but, we learn as we read, a very specific pair defined by family, circumstance, place, and time. 

Whatever your race or gender, where, as a reader, do you locate yourself in this exchange? Where do you find yourself most engaged? Where do you feel that you, too, are being addressed or invited to respond? As you reread, mark places where you feel, as a reader, an opening in this selection. What does it mean, or what does it take, to be a reader in the face of a text like this one?

Write an essay, perhaps in the shape of a review for a magazine or newspaper, in which you consider this book’s considerable success and the demands it places on its readers. 

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