Coming of Age in 2020

Everyone knows what coming of age in America is supposed to look like. Then came 2020. Instead of proms and championship games and all-night hangouts with friends, there was school on Zoom from bed. In this book, teenagers from across the country show how they coped with a world on fire, as a pandemic raged, political divides hardened and the Black Lives Matter movement galvanised millions. Via diary entries, comics, photos, poems, paintings, charts, lists, Lego sculptures, songs, recipes and rants, they tell the story of the year that will define their generation.

The pieces in this collection, chosen from more than 5,500 submitted to a contest on The New York Times Learning Network, provide an arresting documentation of how ordinary teenagers experienced extraordinary events. But for every creative expression of terror, frustration, loneliness and anxiety, there is another of meaning, joy, resilience and hope.