Long Way Down

I HAD NEVER HELD A GUN

Never even

touched one.

Heavier than

I expected,

like holding

a newborn

except I

knew the

cry would

be much

much much

much louder (59).

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

When Will’s brother, Shawn, is shot and killed, he knows the rules: No crying. No snitching. And “[i]f someone you love / gets killed, // find the person / who killed // them and / kill them.” Will doesn’t cry. He doesn’t snitch. He even has a gun, wrested from Shawn’s bedroom drawer, which he dutifully puts in his waistband before walking out to the elevator which will take him out of the building, to where he knows he has to exact revenge. But as Will rides the elevator down, down, down, it stops with each floor, admitting someone who used to be a part of his life—before guns took them away. This book is engrossing, philosophical, hard, and tender. Unlike some YA novels written in verse, this one truly earns the name of poetry. Each word is carefully leveraged for maximum emotional impact, and the figurative language found here is so skillful that a generation of young readers might find themselves caring about and recognizing the importance of metaphors, similes, alliteration, and onomatopoeia by virtue of this book’s example alone. The text is accessible and challenging at once, using simple words to ask hard questions about the intersection between what we’ve been taught and what we choose to do. Highly recommended for reluctant readers. Subjects this book includes that some readers may be sensitive to (but which others may be thrilled to find sensitively discussed in their literature): gun violence, drug trade, death.