Speaking of the moment, he said he and his friends felt "an anger, a pain, like a cancer metastasizing by the second, spreading around [them] and through [them]. These encounters challenge Will to evaluate his choices and reconsider his actions before he makes a choice he can never change. The "an eye for an eye" mentality only serves to perpetuate a cycle of violence in which nothing ever really changes or gets better until someone is brave enough to break the cycle. However, the 67 seconds he spends in the lift from his apartment to the ground floor are life-changing for Will. As I have already mentioned, this book is a quick read, but the emotional impact it has, is phenomenal.

They ducked and hid, like they were trained to do, and when things quieted, they looked up to count the bodies. Will explores this dilemma during a long elevator ride down, in which he is visited by the ghosts of people who have been impactful in his life. But what he doesn't expect is an elevator ride filled with the past, and to face what he hasn't had to face until now. Books can help teenagers to process sad feelings, especially when they find it hard to talk to adults. He says he was torn apart by Mark's death, and reluctantly followed rule three and went after the killer, killing the man he was sure killed Mark.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. Kirkus, [5] Publishers Weekly, [13] the New York Public Library, [14] the Chicago Public Library, [15] Entertainment Weekly, [16] Vulture, [17] Paste, [18] Buzzfeed, [19] Horn Book, [20] and School Library Journal [21] named Long Way Down one of the best young adult books of the year. 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. His vision of art and writing is to see empathy extended, more and more empathy extended, right across all barriers and boundaries. But as he takes the elevator down, with a gun tucked in his pants, it stops on each floor and a ghost from Will's past enters, all victims of gun violence, but will that be enough to change his mind ?

He also reveals that when he was in a similar situation years ago and tried to take revenge, he killed the wrong person, but still furthered the cycle of violence. 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.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. 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. On suit notre protagoniste, dans sa tête, qui souhaite venger la mort de son frère, tué par balle dans contexte de règlement de compte entre gangs de rue. The overall theme of the book is one of revenge, passed down through generations and strengthened through the community they live in. He’s succeeded in his aim by a million degrees: this is one of the most exciting books written for young people or anyone.

These characters are all ghosts from Will’s past and it is a sad reflection on a young man’s life that violent crime has had such a huge impact.

After earning a BA in English from The University of Maryland, College Park, Jason Reynolds moved to Brooklyn, New York, where you can often find him walking the four blocks from the train to his apartment talking to himself.