Give a Boy a Gun By Todd Strasser

I know that it has been a little while since my last post, but I am finally feeling like I have a good plan and schedule in my life. As such I have been able to read more, and I just finished a very powerful book called Give a Boy a Gun.
The book is very powerful for several reasons, but the most powerful reason might be the fact that I am a teacher and the book hits very close to home.
The book is the story of a small town, and the horror that took place there one evening, in form of a school shooting. The book tells the story of Gary and Brendan, two bullied and ostracized boys. who go from merely angry and lonely to violent and aggressive.
An interesting piece about the book is that the book is not a clean and straight forward narrative. Instead the story is told from the point of view of a reporter, who has been collecting information on the shooting, trying to understand what happened in her hometown. The book is a collection of facts gathered from research inserted at the bottom of the page, and small sections of recollections from interviews with witnesses.
The witnesses tell both sides of the story, the people who were friends or supporters of the perpetrators and those who are angry at what happened. The heart of the book is trying to understand that which can not be understood, what can drive two people to believe that killing others and themselves is the only solution.
This book should be praised for the realism it portrays and when I first read it, I had to confirm that it was a work of fiction, instead of a non-fiction.
The book also lists incidents of gun violence that occurred prior to the book being published and while the book was being written.
Overall, this a very good book that draws people in and really makes you question our society. One of the most powerful quotes from the book is this..."Time and time again, the gun industry has injected into the civilian market new guns that are specifically designed to be better at killing." pg. 167
For all that this is a young adult/teen book, it is a book that I would recommend for all people to read, in order to think about our society and our current and future actions.