give a boy a gun

reader response to Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser

The inside cover reads:
BANG!
Gunshots echo through the gym. Two heavily armed students, Garyand Brendan, hold their classmates hostage at a high school dance. Theirtargets: the football players and teachers who have tomented them. Theirweapons: 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 atMiddletown Hih and the reasons behind Gary and Brendan's rampage. Mirroring the voices on each page are facts about guns and school ciolencethat offer a blistering counterpoint to a tragedy that rings deadfullytrue to life.

My Rxn:
I originally picked this one up because i saw so many kids toting it around. It shows how stereotypes, physical and verbal abuse, and high school drama can push kids over the edge. It's easy to automatically side with the protagonists of this story if you were an outcast in high school. In fact, a lot of stuff that I wrote down about my classmates isn't all that friendly, but the thing is, i never acted on it. But what if I had? Something that might be ignorable to me just might push someone else over the edge to the breaking point. This novel doesn't really have a linear plot... it's just a lot of "eye witness" accounts telling about the two protagonists. This story really makes you think twice before harassing someone in school. It also provides the reader with statistics on school violence and shootings. Minimal swearing, real life situations, and empathetic plausibility win this novel the Word Nerd Seal of Approval. I would totally use it in my classroom... but parents might not like the idea.