I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book - I don’t normally select nonfiction but I was intrigued and I was NOT disappointed. Erin weaves a beautiful story together from tragedy and helps you remember all the good people there are still in this world. I had never heard of the Dozier school but now I’ll never forget the boys who died there and how they are being remembered today. If you love crime & suspense and are looking to branch out a bit, this is a great and quick read.

𝙇𝙚𝙩 𝙢𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙗𝙮 𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙙𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙣-𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙨. 𝙃𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙮𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙨𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙨𝙤 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙮 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙄 𝙜𝙤𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖𝙣 𝙚-𝘼𝙍𝘾. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧’𝙨 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙩𝙮𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙. 𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙤 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙧𝙮, 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙧𝙮, 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙡𝙡 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙖 𝙩𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙮𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙚𝙬 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨. 𝙀𝙧𝙞𝙣 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙖 𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙟𝙤𝙗 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙮𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨.

“You don’t have to look too far to find injustice in Florida.”

Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Non Fiction True Crime

This story is not for the faint of heart, but it’s important not to ignore the darkness of American history.

WARNING: Child Abuse, Violence, Racism, Murder

True Crime is always best written by those who have been involved personally, in my opinion.

Erin Kimmerle not only explains the science behind her forensic anthropology work, but tells the stories of these lost boys with empathy and compassion.

This is also an intense look at how the need for cheap labor led to the rise of for profit prisons where inmates could be legally forced to do slave labor.

At least 50 boys died while attending Dozier and didn’t even get treated human enough to have their names properly documented. “Throwaways” one townswoman had called them, there is no such thing as throwaway children.

Let me end by saying THANK YOU to Erin Kimmerle for the work she and her team continue to do!

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow Books for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review. Enjoyed feels like the wrong word, but this book was so informative.

Although the content of this book is so important to learn about, I didn't like the clunkiness of the writing.

I am shocked at this unbelievable and horrific part of our history. However, I’m so relieved this story is being told and that healing can come from it. It’s scary reading about a town cloaked in disbelieving these 100+ year old allegations. All the same, the efforts by those involved in solving the mystery of abused boys at the Dozier Reform School are to be applauded.

Kimmerle’s technical explanations for her excavations were so helpful in understanding the archaeology work she does and how detailed and grueling and exciting it is. I don’t typically put excavations together with resolving terrible historic mysteries but I’m deeply impressed with her work and her telling of all she did scientifically, emotionally, humanely. Amazing. There is a great documentary called Deadly Secrets to put faces to the names.

Don’t miss this book.

Erin Kimmerle’s in-depth account of the forensic anthropology of the former Dozier School for Boys will interest readers of The Nickel Boys, the award-winning novel that imagined the atrocities that juveniles faced there.

The many threads of Dr. Kimmerle’s overall task —to locate, unearth, examine, and attempt to identify and repatriate the bodies of boys who died at the school over many years—involved numerous instrumental activities that she explains within the chapters. She becomes acquainted with several former “students” who were sent to the school generations ago. As allegations of abuse by the school’s officials- employees of the State of Florida- became more public and substantiated, Kimmerle’s team attempts to confirm stories that dozens of boys had died at the school without clear indication of causes, often denied or ignored in shoddy school records. Frequently boys disappeared without documentation to family or state officials about the final location of the bodies.

Her challenges include these incomplete records, community hostility, hesitant politicians, and incredible difficulty in identification both of remains, some nearly a century old, and of surviving next-of-kin.

Meanwhile the emotional burden is overwhelming. The author includes myriad details of boys remanded to the reform school for often trivial reasons and variously treated with neglect, cruelty, violence, and abuse.

And so We Carry Their Bones was not an easy read for me, though an important one. As an additional challenge, the scientist Kimmerle provides exacting detail on the burial searches, equipment required, and the examination of recovered remains. In reading an Advance Uncorrected Proof of the work, I found no illustrations to help the uninitiated reader to picture the school grounds or the excavation procedures. I believe such visual aids would greatly aid in the reader’s appreciation of the carefully detailed descriptions.

Overall, however, the work offers an understanding of this sad chapter in Florida history, and confirms that a degree of acknowledgment, apology, and compensation have finally been offered. The volume also describes some of the relief and gratitude expressed by victims and relatives as they finally attain some closure.

“We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys,”
by Erin Kimmerle (ISBN: 978006303024), Publication Date: 14 Jun 2022, earns five stars.

This evocative and compelling book is a perfect companion piece providing the tragic and discriminatory facts underpinning the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Nickel Boys.” Those facts focus on Erin Kimmerle’s forensic anthropological, lobbying, and legal efforts needed to determine the numbers and identities of the young boys who died while in the “care” of the Florida-run Dozier School for Boys, and the legal wrangling with state and local officials surrounding those vital efforts.

This “home” was opened in 1900 and was closed in 2011 after a long and known history of racially-based child abuse and worse—an open secret. For those who might worry about reading about forensic anthropology, it is not a graphic book, but it is poignant book and definitely worth reading.

Thanks to the publisher, William Morrow, for granting this reviewer this opportunity to read this Advance Reader Copy (ARC), and thanks to NetGalley for helping to make that possible.

The Dozier School for Boys opened in 1900 as a reformatory and closed in 2011 after reports of child abuse. Erin Kimmerle investigates the deaths of over 40 boys at the school to bring a sense of justice to the victims’ families and the school’s survivors.

We Carry Their Bones tells an important story that should not be overlooked. It was written with a clear human connection, making it super nice to read, and I especially liked that it included details about archeology!

I have, admittedly, not read as much true crime as I've watched. I tend to take great care in choosing the things I read and for whatever reason, true crime books feel much more intimate than other forms of media to an almost intimidating degree. Nonetheless, Erin Kimmerle's journey to bring justice and peace to the lives of those affected by the tragic - and horrific - happenings of Florida's Dozier School for Boys hits the sweet spot of my ideal true crime read: a centering of victims and relentless pursuit for justice despite all obstacles to the contrary, with supplementary perspectives provided from both victims who lived through the tragedy who are in search of healing and bystanders who heard or saw the unbelievable and stand in support of the pursuit of peace for those lost no matter the cost to social image.

There was, naturally, also the confrontational force of people in power who wish to keep those tragic events buried and those who take an almost fanatical pride in the image they believe their town must maintain despite any of it's history. Florida is a contentious place now for all manner of insane reasons, and while I am not from that specific state, I am from the south, and am more than a little familiar with the judgement that comes along with not aligning with socially accepted beliefs and ideas in an area that would prefer to spend its time holding onto structural ideals of the past rather than progress to a more open-minded and accepting future. Even when the things we must be open-minded and accepting of are as simple as the fact that people look differently from one another. Erin Kimmerle's We Carry Their Bones carries this tension at its heart, making it an equal part frustrating and heart-wrenching read.

I find one of the most important things a work of true crime can do is bring light to a subject that either is or feels largely unknown. Before We Carry Their Bones I had never even heard of Dozier School for Boys or its violent history built from wildly intense systemic racism. After finishing the book all I want to do is tell people about the survivors' efforts to never let themselves or their friends be forgotten amid a culture that would prefer to pretend that racism and violent physical, emotional, and sexual abuse either does not happen or was somehow beneficial for the predominantly Black victims. It takes an incalculable amount of strength to stand up to your abusers, and even moreso to stand up to an entire town and state who want to protect them over you, and these men did it despite taking a stand meaning they would have to once again confront demons of their past that have had a chokehold on them for years.

The Dozier School for Boys was a state-run establishment that fashioned itself a kind of reform school for troubled kids but was in reality little more than a house of horrors for its young residents, who were routinely abused or sold to local farmers in a form of indentured servitude. With mounting allegations of both the abuse and rumored "mysterious deaths and disappearances", the school shut down in 2011 and forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle set out to discover the true number of victims who had been buried there either in unmarked graves or elsewhere on grounds. As she discovered twice the number of officially recorded bodies on the site, she and her team were routinely harasser by townsfolk and law enforcement alike, revealing a gut-wrenching story of the lengths people with power will go to protect themselves and their secrets, and the complicity of a town with violently outdated ideas.

Kimmerle's work both in her day-to-day life and in her efforts to write this book are inspirational beyond words, to me. Every step of the way she makes it clear that her purpose here is to speak for and help the deceased victims be reunited with family who had been searching for them without knowledge of their fate sometimes for decades. When they would come to her with their stories and their rage she listened with an open mind and heart and promised them her best efforts. Forensic anthropology - and any criminal justice related field, for that matter - requires an extraordinary amount of empathy to be practiced effectively, and Kimmerle has made it her life's work to be a shining example of the impact we can have when we help those we can get the platform they need to speak to justice in their own ways, no matter the obstacles we might face.

We Carry Their Bones is a constantly disturbing account of one city's best-kept open secret, allowed somehow to run for over a century with little effective intervention thanks to a series of well-placed roadblocks built on the backs of Jim Crow style ideals. But it is also a story of hope. Kimmerle's book is careful to name each of the known victims and provide their stories, so that everyone who fell to this place, or who left it with irrevocable scars, is known as a person instead of just a set of bones tossed into a shallow grave or a criminal sent somewhere to whip them back into socially acceptable shape. It is careful to give survivors and family members alike a space to let their voices be heard, and to platform the importance of reuniting them with their lost loved ones. The Dozier School investigation is still ongoing, as is the discovery and identification of bodies, an arduous but important task.

We Carry Their Bones is true crime used for its best purposes: offering hope through the darkness of some of mankind's most heinous acts while honoring those who fell victim to it.

A fascinating account of horrific events at the Dozier School for Boys. I remember hearing a bit about the school and the discovery of graves in the news at the time, but it certainly didn’t get the coverage and national attention that it deserved. This book should change that.

At times it was hard to read about the abuse those young men suffered, but the author’s passion for her work and empathy for victims kept me reading. I'd highly recommend this for anyone interested in forensics, science, anthropology, and social justice.

This nonfiction is about the Dozier Boys School in Florida, notorious because of its well-known, but ignored by many, decades of abuse, neglect, and even murder of young boys (deemed "mysterious deaths" by local white citizens, local law enforcement, and local and state government officials), predominantly Black boys, who were referred to as "throwaways" by the State. Written by the forensic anthropologist who investigated at the school and fought to exhume the graves of the dozens upon dozens of boys buried there, this book details the history of the school, the investigation, and the fight for justice and acknowledgement for this ugly history.

Kimmerle of course does well with explaining the forensic and DNA testing, and the archaeological process of exhuming the graves. She also provides an accounting of how the Reconstruction era and the incarceration of former slaves for use as indentured labor, rented out by the penal system, contributed directly to the creation of the Dozier school. Boys as young as 5 or 6 years old were forced to work long, grueling hours on local farms or for local businesses while the School profited.

I will note that at times, Kimmerle's writing becomes unclear because of time jumps from the present back into history and then back into the present without a clear reference point for the dates in the narrative. There were some points in the book where I hadn't even realized that I was back in the present, so to speak. There were other points where Kimmerle, who is white, makes virtue statements about how we've come such a long way as a society which, given the outcome, rings a little hollow. For example, the School only closed in 2011. That's quite close in time. Moreover, although the State finally acknowledged the pain and suffering, and apologized, when the bodies were reburied between the School's town and Tallahassee, not a single marker or memorial was put in place. The only recognition that there are graves are, as Kimmerle states, the paper markers that she used during her investigative work. We've come a long way, indeed.

The story of a reform school in Florida that, over its years of operation from 1900 to 2011, had a reputation for abuse, torture, rape, and sometimes suspicious and/or unreported deaths, often of black children. The author is the forensic anthropologist who went in to determine the number of graves on site, which ended up being much more than reported, and then begin to exhume remains to return to the families. This was a history of the school, including all the brutality, alongside the modern-day excavation and the return of remains to families when possible. The thought of these things happening to grown men would have been difficult, but to imagine my son and or nephews enduring this was pretty sickening, especially when children were sent to places like this for "crimes" like truancy, often without their parents even knowing they were locked up until it was already a done deal, maybe never to be seen again, remains buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten. I actually started crying reading about the fire in 1913 or '14 that killed several children. My little boy, at age 5, is old enough to have been one of those convicted in a court of something like delinquency, later burning to death chained to a wall in a dark isolation cell. FIVE. I can't say it was enjoyable to read, but it was interesting. I especially liked the chapter on reconstructing the remains. 4 stars.

When reading We Carry Their Bones, I felt like I was watching a fantastic documentary or 20/20 episode. Erin Kimmerle illustrates the search for justice at the boys school in such vivid detail that you feel like you are there.

I loved the blend of a mystery, historical research and anthropology that occurred and the descriptions of the atrocities at the boy’s school is chilling. I also love how the book can be seen through a social science lens as advocacy for change when it comes to how we handle race and juvenile crime.

I loved We Hold Their Bones and give it a 5/5!

the Florida School for Boys or the Dozier school holds many secrets. None of them good. Abuse, sexual assaults and even possible homicides all committed in the name of Justice. However, no one knows for certain just how many boys are buried in the surrounding land of the school.
The author was determined to find out.
After reading Colson Whiteheads book, The Nickel Boys, I have been intrigued by the history of the Dozier school for boys in Florida.
This author gives us the history and the determination of identifying those poor souls that had perished at the school.
The author gives the reader a play by play of the steps taken to deal with the bureaucracy of trying to bring the boys' bodies home to their rightful families.
In a quagmire of logistics and fighting the state of Florida at every turn, the author finds over 55 graves on the site.
the hardwork of determining who the boys were begins.

This book should be required reading for everyone in the state of Florida, the Criminal Justice system and anyone interested in racial justice.

I was appalled at what the boys had to go through.

I am happy that the author took up the call to action and resolved some of the mystery of this horrific school.

I found this author is just amazing at what she does for a living and how she fought to the end to get answers. She helped many family members who had lost their boys at this awful facility in northern Florida. The book has lots of background and history of the area and the school. The things that went on there were more than cringe-worthy. I liked learning about how they do a dig and later process what they find. Excellent read for the times. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This review is based on an ARC received from the publisher and NetGalley. This book is a nonfiction account by an anthropologist who was asked to investigate the number of bodies of children and teenagers buried at a former reform school with decades of documented abuses. The author discusses how she came to be involved with the project, along with the difficulties in completing it, including dealing with a number of local residents that wanted the issue pushed aside. The book also explains a bit about forensic anthropology and the process and equipment the author and her team used to explore and excavate around the school. It goes without saying that parts of the book a obviously pretty dark; the author discusses children being abused and murdered by people entrusted with their care, but the book also discusses how the surviving family members of those children were able to find some degree of closure when their long lost relative's bodies were finally accounted for.

The first time I heard about the Dozier School, I was driving in my car listening to NPR. It was one of those segments where when I got home, I had to sit in my driveway to hear the ending.

Dozier School was a juvenile reform school school for boys in Florida. It was open for over 100 years, from 1900-2011, and its entire history is full of stories of abuse, deaths, and disappearances. This book details the history of the school and the fight to excavate the graveyard of unmarked graves on the school grounds, in the hopes of answering questions about the alleged abuse and reuniting families with the lost remains of their loved ones.

The story of Dozier School is horrifying, and it is covered well here. The author does a fantastic job of explaining how race, poverty, and historical events contributed to the creation and management of the school, and how long-held local prejudices interfered with attempts to investigate the school even after its closure. It's a terrible story, but it needs to be told.

I do think this book needed to clean up its timeline. It jumps around and is sometimes difficult to follow, and some threads disappear, leaving unanswered questions. Too much time was spent on the legal battle to excavate the graveyard--it's important to the story and needs to be included, but it should be more concise.

The weird thing about this book is that it was written by Erin Kimmerle, the forensic anthropologist who led the investigation and excavation....BUT it barely focused on the excavation, the results, what they found, or how the connected the physical remains with the historical information to make identifications. Basically, all the parts that I was really interested in reading about, and the topics that I expected from this particular author to cover in detail. She also jumps around frequently, making it hard to follow the story of any one boy, and she will often start talking about something in detail and then just STOP without finishing the story.

Here is one specific, frustrating example of an incomplete story: a dormitory fire caused multiple deaths in 1914. The school reported that the remains were too damaged to be identified, the bodies were buried in the graveyard, and families were notified. However, there were multiple inconsistencies in the reports of how many deaths had occurred and who they were. The book describes how during the excavation, they discovered 7 coffins containing charred remains from the fire, but the remains were only from 3 individuals mixed together and divided among 7 coffins. So then we get tons of detail about how the team returns the the site, finds the area where the dorm burned, excavates until they find debris from the fire, including bones, and then.....we jump to talking about something else entirely and never return to the fire victims. No info about if the new bones were consistent with the previous 3 individuals or not, no theories about what happened to the bodies of the other reported victims, nothing.

However, despite some of the narrative issues, Dozier School represents one of those uncomfortable parts of history that we still all need to know about, and the book is definitely worth a read.

**As a note, I read this book as an eARC that did not include any photos, but I did notice there were photo references at the end of the books, so I may have missed out on images that may have provided additional information.

To call "We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys" fascinating seems somehow inadequate in fully describing the tangible sense of tragedy that unfolds within the pages of noted forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle's book about her work investigating the notorious Dozier Boys School, the true story behind Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Nickel Boys."

It's hard to believe that a place like the Arthur G. Dozier Boys School existed here in the U.S., Florida specifically, until 2011 when the years of reports of abuse, cruelty, and "mysterious" deaths finally led to its demise after over 100 years of children as young as six-years-old being sent to its rural Florida Panhandle settings for "crimes" as minor as trespassing and truancy.

Some of these young boys never returned home.

In the wake of the school's shutdown, Kimmerle stepped in to locate the school's graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried in them. Through forensic and DNA testing, Kimmerle began a journey toward uniting these boys with their families and to provide some semblance of justice for these boys who had seen very little actual justice in their lives.

The school's shoddy record-keeping indicated a graveyard located somewhere on the grounds with an estimated 31 boys who'd died from a variety of causes. Kimmerle's findings would reveal twice that, though more importantly these findings would help reveal the horrific truth behind years of rumors of violence, sexual assault, and indentured labor in this frightening "school" left over from Jim Crow America in a community that wasn't eager to confront its not so distant past.

"We Carry Their Bones" is at its best when Kimmerle vividly and painstakingly brings to life the stories of these boys through family interviews, historical documents, and through her own remarkable work as a forensic anthropologist. The way that Kimmerle writes you can practically visualize these families in front of you telling you their stories and weeping for justice for a loved one deserving of so much more than they've ever received.

"We Carry Their Bones" is, on the other hand, hindered somewhat by Kimmerle's occasional insistence on rabbit-hole reporting and journalistic asides that add very little to the book and distract from the emotional power of these stories and how Kimmerle's work is revealing long-hidden truths. While the forensic anthropology process is certainly important, at times it's overly detailed and structured in such a way that it interrupts the flow of otherwise riveting material. Kimmerle's strong personality, likely a necessity in a male-dominated field where she excels, occasionally feels overly defensive and takes attention away from the subject matter at hand. It's a relatively minor issue, however, in an otherwise stellar book that I never found less than deeply engaging.

Kimmerle does an exceptional job of not only bringing these boys' stories to life, but also of stripping away the governmental, cultural, and institutional facades that allowed a place like the Dozier School for Boys to exist decades after it should have been shut down and decades after even a little bit of exploration would have revealed its truths. Kimmerle takes a rather relentless approach to exploring these issues and the culture underneath the facade of an otherwise warm and welcoming small town where many of its residents had either worked at the Dozier School or knew someone who did.

"We Carry Their Bones" is, as Colson Whitehead himself notes, "a tale more frightening than any fiction" and Kimmerle powerfully brings this tale to life in a way that resonates both emotionally and intellectually. Through her work, she carries these boys home to families that have waited for years for answers to questions that many people refused to even ask. Kimmerle shares her journey through the soul of Jim Crow America and through her own use of forensic anthropology as the power of belief helps people find the courage to speak up and those in power finally begin to listen in incremental yet meaningful ways.

"We Carry Their Bones" demands that we immerse ourselves in this world so that we can understand the legacy of racism and alleged justice that allowed Dozier School, and schools just like it across America and beyond, to perpetuate itself for so many years. With painstaking detail and remarkable imagery, Kimmerle has crafted one of the year's most remarkable stories about a world we keep saying we left behind but, in reality, is still sitting at our doorstep.

The Dozier School for Boys was open for over 100 years. In that time, hundreds of boys were subject to atrocities and abuses that were very hard to read about. Many died while in custody, and many died under mysterious circumstances.

I didn't know about the Dozier School for Boys before I read this book. I've got be honest, this book made me angry.

I desperately wanted to see these men get justice. I wanted the abuses to be acknowledged and reparations to be made. As a result, I had a hard time putting this book down.

The story behind the real-life school that the Nickel Boys was based on. The author was part of the archeological team that helped excavate and bring justice to the boys that went to the Dozier Boys School in Marianna, Fl..

This book is important because not many people know this history. However, I wish it had been more clearly separated into a history of the school and then the archeological efforts. Right now, I feel like some of the importance of the history is lost with the current organization.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.