High school sophomores Gary Searle and Brendan Lawlor have had enough. Day in and day out, for more than two years, they have been harassed, beaten up, and cursed out by most of the jocks at Middleton High--especially by football player Sam Flach. Armed with guns they've stolen from a neighbor's collection, Gary and Brendan storm a school dance, booby trap all the doors with homemade bombs, and prepare to turn their high school caste system upside down with a violent show of force. When it's all over, Sam Flach is alive (but without any hope of a future football career), Gary has killed himself, and Brendan is in a coma, after being beaten almost to death by other students who managed to disarm him. Could this tragedy have been prevented? Who, if anyone, is to blame?

Consisting of short, related statements from students, parents, school administrators, and even the troubled shooters themselves, Give a Boy a Gun attempts to give a voice to the countless sides of the school violence issue. Is this novel disturbing and at times difficult to read? Yes, of course it is. But it is also an articulate, well-rounded cross section of the many viewpoints on gun control, peer bullying, and the high school social order since the traumatic events that took place in Littleton, Colorado. While Strasser readily acknowledges that there are no easy solutions to the problem of school violence, this powerful book will be a useful tool for parents and teachers alike in exploring this issue and finding some ways of resolving the tragic escalation of teen violence. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert


From Publishers Weekly
The author explores the psyche of adolescents who use handguns to violent ends, as two 10th-graders hold their classmates hostage. Ages 12-up. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-Two boys go on a shooting rampage at Middletown High School; one commits suicide, the other is beaten unconscious before he gets the chance. It happens in the gymnasium, not the library, but the scenario will sound familiar. The story unfolds in a series of interviews, after the fact, conducted by a college student who reveals her relationship to the case at the end of the book. She tries to piece together the puzzle of the tragedy by gathering various individuals' recollections about the boys beginning in grade school. Gary was very bright, quiet, and had a weight problem. Brendan was thin, defensive, and quick to anger. As the chapters move from middle school up, readers hear from classmates and teachers that these boys were outcasts-ostracized and bullied by their peers-and potential trouble. They remain flat, two-dimensional characters, and what their suicide notes say and how the events play out come as no surprise. Statistics, quotes, and facts related to actual incidents of school violence appear in dark print at the bottom of the pages. An appendix includes a chronology of school shootings in the United States, the author's own treatise on gun control, and places to get more information. While this book lacks the literary merit of Avi's Nothing But the Truth (Orchard, 1991) or Rob Thomas's Slave Day (S & S, 1997), it will satisfy empathetic teenage readers and might succeed as a springboard for a class discussion.Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Gr. 6-12. In this powerful documentary novel, Strasser presents a passionate indictment of America's gun culture and the equally pernicious, pervasive caste system that has created a society of disaffected outsiders in America's secondary schools. When these cultures collide, as they did at Columbine, the consequences can be tragic. Without exploitation, he charts the growing disaffection of Gary and Brendan, two teenage friends who dream of taking revenge on the people (primarily members of the school's football team) who have tormented them. Told in a variety of voices, which are presented as excerpts from interviews with family, friends, teachers, and others, the story gains momentum and intensity as the boys turn their revenge fantasies into reality. Using a device that recalls John Dos Passos, Strasser includes a contrapuntal collection of quotations, facts, and figures about school and gun violence, which appears in a different typeface at the bottom of most pages. The cumulative effect of this combination of information and fiction is deeply moving and disturbing, as are the appended lists of school shootings and incidents of violence that occurred while the book was being written. Both haunting and harrowing, the book deserves a wide readership, discussion, and debate. Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
For as long as they can remember, Brendan and Gary have been mercilessly teased and harassed by the jocks who rule Middletown High. But not anymore. Stealing a small arsenal of guns from a neighbor, they take their classmates hostage at a school dance. In the panic of this desperate situation, it soon becomes clear that only one thing matters to Brendan and Gary: revenge.

ANNOTATION

Events leading up to a night of terror at a high school dance are told from the point of view of various people involved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

BANG!

Gunshots echo through the gym. Two heavily armed students, Gary and Brendan, hold their classmates hostage at a high school dance. Their targets: the football players and teachers who have tormented them. Their weapons: semiautomatic rifles stolen from a neighbor. Their motive: revenge.

In Give a Boy a Gun, the interweaving voices of students, teachers, friends, and the gunmen themselves re-create the harrowing crisis at Middletown High and the reasons behind Gary and Brendan's rampage. Mirroring the voices on each page are facts about guns and school violence that offer a blistering counterpoint to a tragedy that rings dreadfully true to life.

A stunning work of fiction taken straight from today's headlines, Give a Boy a Gun is a stirring wake-up call to stop the violence and explore the role of guns in the lives of teenagers.

SYNOPSIS

Ripped from today's headlines comes the story of two high school students who are out for revenge. Armed with stolen rifles, they terrorize a high school dance -- holding classmates and teachers hostage. In quotes from the teens involved, as well as from their classmates, teachers, and family members, we learn what has led two otherwise unexceptional boys to this fateful moment. Todd Strasser uses stunning detail and true facts about school violence to illustrate the hostile epidemic that is upon us.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The author explores the psyche of adolescents who use handguns to violent ends, as two 10th-graders hold their classmates hostage. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Like Virginia Walter in Making Up Megaboy, Strasser (How I Changed My Life) explores the psyche of adolescents who use handguns to violent ends. Unfortunately, the format used here detracts from the central drama--10th-graders Gary Searle and Brendan Lawlor holding their classmates hostage with firearms and bombs. A portentous author's note ("One of the things I dislike most about guns in our society is that... they rob children of what we used to think of as a childhood") prefaces an excerpt from Gary's suicide note, which is followed by comments from one Denise Shipley, who is studying journalism at the state university and returns to Middletown High "determined not to leave again until I understood what had happened there." The bulk of the novel is comprised of quotes Denise has collected from, among others, the two 10th-graders' parents, teachers and classmates, including nemesis Sam Flach, a football player whose knees they shatter with bullets. These quotes, however, seem arbitrarily arranged into sections; scattered and disconnected, the quotes build little momentum and the overall effect is numbing. Running along the foot of many of the pages are distracting excerpts from the media, Internet postings and statistics from unattributed sources (e.g., "The number of kids killed by firearms has quadrupled in the past ten years"). The revelation in Denise's closing note (that she is Gary's stepsister) and the author's "Final Thoughts" ("It will be your job to keep these ideas alive") provide a heavy-handed ending that may be more off-putting than eye-opening. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Children's Literature

Two troubled teenage boys terrorize their classmates at a high school dance. Armed with semiautomatic rifles and handguns, the boys take revenge on the students who have teased and tormented them for years. The result, of course, is violent injury and death. Related in journalistic style, this chilling novel consists of quotes and anecdotes from classmates, parents, teachers, and friends of the victims, as well as excerpts from the gunmen's suicide notes. In bold print, footnotestyle, is factual information, and statistics about guns and violence in the United States. For example, in 1996, handguns killed 9,390 people in the U.S., compared with 15 in Japan, 30 in Great Britain, and 106 in Canada. Frightening in its realistic portrayal of teen angst gone haywire, disturbing in its unveiling of cold hard facts about guns and violence, this book will give readers on all sides of the gun issue an indelible and haunting memory. 2000, Simon & Schuster, Ages 12 up, $16.00. Reviewer: Christopher Moning

VOYA

Gary and Brendan, two dissatisfied teenagers, strike out angrily at the cool, popular high school teens who have snubbed them. Dressed in camouflage and ski masks and carrying semiautomatic weapons, they burst into a crowded gymnasium full of students and teachers attending a school dance. Forcing their hostages to lie on the floor, they spray the ceiling with bullets. The only teacher who tries to resist them is shot in the chest. With cold deliberation, they shoot Sam, a football player, in both knees. Allison, Gary's friend, courageously prevents Sam from bleeding to death. Emotionally overwrought, Gary shoots himself in the head. Distracted by his friend's suicide, Brendan is tackled, restrained, and nearly beaten to death by outraged male students. By the last chapter, Brendan is in a coma with irreversible brain damage, Sam never will play football again, and the community struggles to analyze the events leading up to this terrible tragedy. In the wake of the Columbine shootings, this subject is certainly timely, but the text lacks immediacy. Presented as a series of interviews with community members and high school students, the format divorces the reader from the action. Characterization does not always ring true, creating cardboard cutouts that represent violent teenagers. The book opens with a graphic medical description of Gary's suicide, but the early chapters covering Brendan and Gary's childhood drag, as the reader awaits the coming tragedy. It is unfortunate that a book dealing with such a serious subject becomes boring at times. Young adults might be tempted to skim the slow parts and skip ahead to the ending. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P J S (Readable without serious defects;Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2000, Simon & Schuster, 128p, $16. Ages 13 to 18. Reviewer: Nancy K. Wallace

SOURCE: VOYA, October 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 4)

KLIATT - Paula Rohrlick