Long Way Down

Long Way Down

by Jason Reynolds

An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is National Book Award finalist and 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.


Ages: Teen
ISBN: 9781481438254
Price: $17.99
Published by: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

More

  • Lesson of the White Eagle
  • Lindie Lou Adventure Series Harvest Time
  • Lindie Lou Adventure Series Up In Space
  • Lindie Lou Adventure Series Flying High
  • The Education of Ivy Blake
  • One for the Murphys
  • Esme Dooley
  • The Scarlet Rose #1: “I Knew I’d Meet You”
  • A Terrible Thing Happened: A Story for Children Who Have Witnessed Violence or Trauma
  • The Only Living Boy #5: “To Save a Shattered World”
  • Somebody Cares: A Guide for Kids Who Have Experienced Neglect
  • The Tallest Bridge in the World: A Story for Children About Social Anxiety
  • Go To School, Little Monster
  • Emily Grace and the What-Ifs: A Story for Children About Nighttime Fears
  • Team Taekwondo: Ara’s Rocky Road to White Belt
  • I Am (Not) Scared
  • Shield Up! How Upstanding Bystanders Stop Bullying
  • Sketch Monsters Volume 1: Attack of the Scribbles
  • Alabaster Shadows
  • Onika Wants To Help: A True Story of Inclusion and Self-Determination
Back to Top