EUREKA PUBLIC LIBRARY DISTRICT (Eureka, Illinois)
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August 19, 2020 | 'Long Way Down' by Jason Reynolds [YA Review]

8/19/2020

 
Picture

Long Way Down

Reynolds, Jason

2017, Atheneum

Fiction

Grades: 7 - 9

Availability

EPLD: print
ILL: audiobook, Playaway, & graphic novel
eBook: Boundless
eAudiobook: Libby & Boundless
An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds’s fiercely stunning novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.

A cannon. A strap.
A piece. A biscuit.
A burner. A heater.
A chopper. A gat.
A hammer
A tool
for RULE

Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.

And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.

Read a review by Katie Metcalfe:

long_way_down_by_jason_reynolds.pdf
File Size: 46 kb
File Type: pdf
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address

202 S. Main St.
​Eureka, IL 61530

phone

309.467.2922

fax

309.467.3527

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  • Home
  • About
    • About
    • Contact Us
    • Library Board
    • Library Policies
    • Staff & Employment
    • Friends of the Library
    • Donations
    • Library Newsletter
    • Fine Free
  • At The Library
    • Program Calendar
    • Illinois Libraries Present
    • Kids
    • Teens
    • Adults
    • Get a Library Card
    • Loan Periods and Fines
    • Library of Things
    • Hotspots
    • Seed Library
  • Find Books & More
    • Search Catalog
    • Access Your Account
    • Wowbrary: Latest Additions
    • Interlibrary Loans
    • Digital Resources
    • Staff Book Reviews
    • Pages of Eureka
  • Services
    • Outreach
    • Porch Pickup
    • Free Services
    • Copy, Print, & Fax
    • Educational Materials Request
    • Talking Books
    • Explore More Illinois
    • Online Classes
    • Mango Languages
    • Niche Academy
  • Research
    • Genealogy & Local History
    • Eureka Pumpkin Festival
    • City & County Resources
    • State & Federal Resources
    • Tax Form Information
    • Voter Information