Review by Booklist Review
This collection of experiences, memories, and flashbacks from survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, edited by a teacher from the school, offers teens a place to process the national tragedy, and the world a window into how the school itself is coping and healing. Few words express the terror and stress of the situation itself, but this book provides a safe space. Poems, essays, and photographs combine in an emotional, empathetic scrapbook-style format. An important theme here is remembrance: students repeatedly remember the lives of those that were lost and remember that everyone affected will never be the same again. In the piecing together of eyewitness accounts, there is distinct pain, but there is also a certainty that love overcomes hate. The Parkland survivors fight every day to make the world different, and ending resources offer tools for advocates and hotlines for those struggling. Closing biographies provide more information about the students themselves. A worthy emotional companion to the more advocacy-driven Glimmer of Hope (2018).--Jessica Anne Bratt Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This poignant and hard-hitting collection of poems, essays, and journal entries by students, accompanied by their artwork and photographs, reinforces the piercing and lingering effects of the Feb. 2018 shootings. Edited by Lerner, an English and journalism teacher and yearbook advisor at the school, this anthology has a spontaneous design, with some entries handwritten and reproduced to replicate scraps of paper taped to the pages, driving home the missives' deeply personal and heartfelt nature. Recurring themes include feeling betrayed by the fact that this hateful act that claimed the lives of 17 occurred on Valentine's Day; incredulity stemming from the false security that "nothing bad ever happens in Parkland"; and survivors' consuming guilt, crystallized in a poem by student Alyson Sheehy: "You're gone/ Yet I'm still here/ And that just feels wrong/ There's so much left/ So much to do/ But you don't get the chance/ To even try." Ages 14-up. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-This collection of poems, essays, photographs, and other works of art reflect the anger, sadness, confusion, and hope that poured out of the students and teachers who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2017. The earnestness of the writing and the raw emotion on display paints a vivid picture of their experiences. Page after page is full of loving tributes to friends and teachers who did not survive. Frantic telephone calls and text messages to family and friends and the unimaginable terror of hiding in a closet or classroom are also discussed. Much of the writing was done in the first few months after the shooting, giving students a way to process their grief and anxiety. The photographs often depict scenes from the protests and marches that happened in the wake of the shooting, which were inspired and led by the students who channeled their emotions into becoming outspoken advocates for gun reform. This is an intense, hard, and very direct window into the experience of surviving a mass shooting. VERDICT A solid choice for high schools seeking to inspire activism in their student body.-Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This emotionally devastating scrapbook-like collection contains essays, poems, journal entries, artwork, and photographs from survivors of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Several accounts describe the events as they unfolded, but the bulk consists of writing and art by students (and a few teachers) processing life after loss. Reproductions of the original handwritten contributions are featured throughout. A hard but important read. Reading list, websites. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A compilation of firsthand witness and survivor accounts of the Feb. 14, 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that took 17 lives and ignited the March for Our Lives.Remembering the victims, processing the trauma, sharing their anger, and advocating for lasting change, 43 survivors of the shooting submitted creative work to editor Lerner, an English and journalism teacher and yearbook adviser at MSD. The result is another kind of yearbook, capturing in words and full-color images the terror of the day and the aftermath of grief, loss, hope, and political action. Lerner selected the pieces, which include poems, essays, a letter, a journal entry, speeches, photographs, and original art. While some of the works are not especially polished and overall the contributions vary in artfulness, all are heartfelt. As a whole, the collection makes clear what it was like to hear the gunshots and the victims' screams, to hide in closets and classrooms, to text frantically to reach friends and family, and later to cope with the return to school, nightmares, and survivor guiltbecoming galvanized into political action. A valuable primary source document that will be of interest to students and activists today and historians tomorrow. (resources, contributor biographies) (Nonfiction. 12-adult) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
