Give a Boy a Gun

By: Todd Strasser

Narrated by: Jack Garrett, Johnny Heller, Corine Montbertrand, Stina Nielsen, Robert Ramirez, Scott Shina, Suzanne Toren

A heartbreaking novel that offers no easy answers, Give a Boy a Gun addresses the growing problem of school violence. Although it is a work of fiction, it could tragically be the leading nightly news story in any community.

After a high school shooting at her alma mater, a college journalism student returns home to interview students, teachers, parents, and friends of the suspects. Intermingled with her interviews are journal entries written by the two troubled boys responsible for the shooting. Their journals chronicle years of systematic abuse at the hands of their classmates and follow the boys' frustration and pain as they turn to rage.

Give a Boy a Gun explores every angle and raises tough questions about peer bullying, gun control and accountability. A full cast of narrators' voices add a dramatic reality to this provocative work.

©2000 Todd Strasser (P)2001 Recorded Books, LLC

Realistic and eye-opening.

This audiobook was a realistic, harrowing and eye-opening story that, unfortunately, should be classed as non-fiction. It gives the listener an insight into the ugly world of bullying and teasing mixed with feelings of loneliness and suicide, and takes them on a journey that is both harrowing and intriguing. Performed fantastically by a large cast, this listen is one that should not be missed.
Reason I gave it four stars instead of five: at times, it moved out of the fiction mode and into a more essay-based mode. I found that this decreased the quality of the story.

School shooting

Grade: B+

In the aftermath of a school shooting and bombing, a recent graduate and journalism returns to her alma mater to interview survivors and witnesses to try to reconstruct what lead Brendan and Gary to do the unthinkable. What she finds is a history of relentless bullying by jocks, teachers and administrators who looked the other way and justified the bullying and students who accepted the status quo.

Rather than a traditional narrative, Todd Strasser wrote GIVE A BOY A GUN as a series of interview snippets, a few internet chats, the boys' suicide notes and some real quotes articles about actual school. I thought Strasser's approach was a great way to give different POVs and to not only show the failure of some of the adults to address the school hierarchy and bullying, but their almost blaming the victims for being bullied. Strasser never suggests that Gary and Brendan were justified in their violence, but that their violence wasn't created in a vacuum. Could their actions have been prevented? Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Brendan seemed to have more inner demons that preceded any bullying. Gary seemed to have been more affected by events at school. Readers will ultimately make their own judgments.

THEMES: school violence, bullying, friendship, divorce

GIVE A BOY A GUN is a thoughtful look at the making of two school shooters.