Long Way Down

Product Information

Reynolds was named the American Booksellers Association’s 2017 and 2018 spokesperson for Indies First, and served as the national spokesperson for the 2018 celebration of School Library Month in April 2018, sponsored by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Furthermore, as we travel down with Will, he contemplates his journey, both this one, and those taken by Shawn and others, just like him, obeying the rules. I was invigilating in a GCSE English room recently, and I picked up this book whilst I was waiting for the students to enter! The ending is ambiguous after Shawn's ghost breaks rule one by weeping in the elevator, then steps off the elevator and asks if Will is coming. The book was longlisted for the National Book Award [1] and was named a Printz Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and Newbery Medal Honor Book, [2] alongside other awards and positive reviews.

I can picture the faces in my head of the former students I wish were still in my classroom so I could put this book right into their hands.

This was such a powerful read, I hope readers everywhere and of all ages (teen and up) read it and are affected by it in a positive way. You can easily read it in an afternoon, yet it will haunt you for a long time afterwards, as it has haunted me. Not saying that I don't appreciate it, I certainly do, but personally, I'm not able to enjoy it to the full extent I should. He has always written stories, but he was an illustrator for twenty years before his first book was published. Since they don't have a father figure, Will looks to Shawn for approval and to learn about the world in which they live.

While the prose of these two books are certainly different, I found Long Way Down slightly superior because of the narrative in verse.Will is determined to honor the memory of his brother and thus feels compelled to seek revenge for Shawn's death by killing his murderer, but at the same time, he is nervous and uncertain about the gravity of his future actions. In this all too real portrait of survival , Reynolds goes toe-to-toe with where, or even if, love and choice are allowed to exist. You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook! I was at my last school for 4 years and we had ********* book fairs every term – and every term, I was disappointed by the narrow range of books. I don’t tolerate self-absorbed people who go out of their way commenting on my review because they think theirs is the only right opinion.

We see the conversations that he is having with some certain people that they were in his life at one point, and how they help our character in the taking of the decision. Long Way Down is a powerful young adult novel that explores violence in the lives of these young black men. Long Way Down is a young adult novel, written in prose, that tells the story of a teenage boy, Will who is seeking revenge for the murder of his older brother. Will’s words are so haunting and broken; he’s lost his big brother, his hero, and now all he wants is to follow the rules – the rules that he’s been taught his whole life. His subconscious fears come to "life" when he is met by "ghosts" from his past who seek to influence his decision and sway him to reconsider.

The man is Buck, a man who used to be like a big brother to Shawn, the man who gave Shawn the gun Will now carries, and a man Will knows to be dead. As Will listens to his mother's sobs at home, he opens the middle drawer of Shawn's dresser, previously forbidden territory, and finds a gun. She currently teaches 9th grade English, a remedial reading and writing course, and English as a new language to non-native speakers. Did Shawn's final words absolve Will of the responsibility of revenge, or was Shawn pushing him to complete rule number three?