Long Way Down

I've never read a book like this before. And I loved it.

Similar to the other two honor books this year, Long Way Down was written by an African American author and was intended for a pre-teen/teen African American audience. Unlike the other two, however, this book moved me. And even though I have little in common with the protagonist as far as culture, family, upbringing, race, gender or even in the way we view the world, I still found myself loving him and rooting for him in a profound way.

Told from the perspective of Will, a 14-year-old African American boy whose older brother was shot and killed the previous day, almost the entire story occurs during Will's 67 second elevator decent on his way to shoot the boy he thinks shot his brother. He refers frequently to THE RULES of his neighborhood:

No. 1: Crying. Don't. No matter what.

No. 2: Snitching. Don't. No matter what. 

No. 3: Revenge. Do. No matter what.

And the author magically makes these rules seem like the most normal, appropriate rules in the world while still being able to ultimately address their flaws. A new person gets on the elevator at each floor, all of them killed as a result of THE RULES, and all of them significant to Will in some way (his dad, his uncle, a childhood friend, his brother's mentor, his brother). They ask Will questions, talk to him, make him doubt his resolve to shoot his brother's murderer, but in some ways encourage him, too. It's fascinating and heartbreaking and told in beautiful verse. And, in the end, it's unresolved, which feels like the only way it should end.

Then I looked up the author, Jason Reynolds, and fell in love with him, too. I love that he visits detention centers around the country and tries to inspire and connect with teenage 'delinquents' (I taught at a detention center for three years and know the kids would have loved him). I love that he didn't read a book until he was 17 and that he tries unconventional ways to make literacy and reading "cool" for kids who grow up in a culture where reading isn't "cool." I love that he writes stories about a marginalized group of people who don't often see themselves in literature. Here's a bang-a-rang quote from an interview he had with Trevor Noah:

"Poetry should be Shakespeare's sonnets and it should be Queen Latifah. Teach comparative literature where you take Queen Latifah's Ladies First and Maya Angelou's Phenomenal Woman and you show young people that nothing is new. This is all a continuum. We are working in tradition. Then they can start to see their place in the things that they're reading. So if you read this, all they're going to see is themselves. So of course it makes more sense. It's an entryway. It doesn't mean I want them to only read my books. It's just a springboard so that they then build relationships not just with literature but with literacy. Then we start fixing violence, we start fixing gangs, we start all of that once you realize that your life is dependent upon your relationship with words."

♡