—Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness Shelf Talker: Will is visited by the ghosts of victims of gun violence as he prepares to kill someone himself in Jason Reynolds's thoughtful and captivating Long Way Down. Why do you think Uncle Mark wants Will to act out what will happen when he follows the rules? "[I]f the blood/ inside you," Will tells the reader, "is on the inside/ of someone else/ you never want to/ see it on the outside of/ them." It describes a 15-year-old who sees his brother shot to death, drawing on Reynolds's experience of … Frick is the only ghost to enter the elevator whom Will does not know. What are his reasons for believing this? His forthcoming YA novel, Long Way Down, … Character Analysis. A “lip-bitingly funny” (School Library Journal) chapter book from the bestselling author of Click, Clack, Moo and Cyclone.There’s a big, SHADOWY ... A National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature. With the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants, Will gets on the elevator at 9:08:02 a.m. He peels back the individual stories that led to this moment in the elevator and exposes a culture inured to violence because poverty, gang life, or injustice has left them with no other option. Part 5. Will’s voice emerges through free-verse poems that are arresting in their imagery and convincing in their conversational cadence. Watch your ankles But in the elevator on the way down to meet Riggs, Will encounters family and friends who died playing by the rules, and now Will has to decide what he is going to do when the elevator reaches its final stop.Discussion Questions 1. Explain your answer. How does Will plan to avenge his brother’s death? How did he die? And so it goes, each stop of the elevator adding to the chorus of ghosts (including Will and Shawn’s father), each one with his or her perspective on The Rules. A gat. The unique narrative structure also makes it an excellent read-alike for Walter Dean Myers's Monster. What message do you think she is trying to share with him? Do you think he’s right? 14. Written entirely in spare verse, this is a tour de force from a writer who continues to demonstrate his skill as an exceptionally perceptive chronicler of what it means to be a black teen in America. You Save 8%. Jason Reynold [s Long Way Down will serve as a mentor text. If not, are there other unspoken rules that you follow instead? Taking the gun jammed into Shawn’s dresser, Will heads to the elevator on the seventh floor of his apartment building and presses the “L” button (which he and Shawn used to pretend stood for “loser” rather than “lobby”) at 9:08:02 am. It so did. Poets are known for using language intentionally and with precision, often choosing words with connotative and denotative meaning. 18. 15. For his second novel About a Boy (1998) Hornby received the E. M. Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Mar 27, 2019 - Explore Sarah Davies's board "Long way down", followed by 175 people on Pinterest. Why doesn’t Will recognize Dani at first? What does his choice suggest about his feelings toward carrying the gun? Nick Hornby. This was very original, perceptive and moving. Why did he keep dealing? Imagine waking up and someone, a stranger, got you strapped down, got pliers shoved into your mouth, gripping a tooth somewhere in the back, one of the big important ones, and rips it out. Long Way Down explores the perpetuation of a cycle of violence and the theme of revenge. Has anyone seen a peek of the cover? Reynolds’ concise verses echo like shots against the white space of the page, their impact resounding. Long Way Down is an intense read with a beautifully ambiguous ending that highlights the humanity of those who are regularly touched by and contribute to gun violence. LitCharts Teacher Editions. How did Will’s father die? A chopper. Symbols & Motifs. Students will analyze techniques used and draw evidence from several exemplar texts (informational and poetic) to support their mastery of citing text, determining theme/central idea, understanding complex characters/characterization, recognizing the cumulative impact of figurative Find an example of figurative language that you think is especially effective and explain why it is significant. And, most importantly, he plans to follow through with the third rule: "if someone you love/ gets killed,/ find the person/ who killed/ them and/ kill them." 3. E. Ethelbert Miller - 1950-I'm in the school bathroom washing my hands without soap but I'm still washing my hands. At each floor, the doors open to admit someone killed by the same cycle of violence that Will’s about to enter. Yet, the simple seven-floor descent becomes a revelatory trip. Does Will understand what his father is trying to show him? A burner. 3. While rap music is sometimes criticized for being misogynistic and/or glorifying violence, drug use, and gang culture, rap music has also brought to light issues of social justice and been a catalyst for reflection, awareness, and change. 12. What are the different connotations of each name? into a film in 2000 and a Broadway musical in 2006. 17. The story unfolds in the time it takes for the elevator to descend, and it ends with a two-word question that hits like a punch to the gut. Fish and birds and lizards and socks...is there anything Max won’t attack? A fast but fiery group of kids from wildly different backgrounds, chosen to compete on an elite track team. Another genre that fits Long Way Down is a verse novel, because it is written as a series of poems. As they relate their tales, readers learn about the cycle of violence in which Will is caught up. -- Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness Nominated as one of America’s best-loved Reflect on the significance of the protagonist’s name. Summary. The day before yesterday, Will's older brother, Shawn, went to the other side of their largely black neighborhood—purportedly crossing rival lines—to get their mother special soap for her eczema. darkest mystery yet: shadows! 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. 2. VERDICT This powerful work is an important addition to any collection.—Kristin Anderson, Columbus Metropolitan Library System, OH, ★ 2017-07-02After 15-year-old Will sees his older brother, Shawn, gunned down on the streets, he sets out to do the expected: the rules dictate no crying, no snitching, and revenge. Long Way Down is a television series and book documenting a motorcycle journey undertaken in 2007 by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, from John o' Groats in Scotland through eighteen countries in Europe and Africa to Cape Town in South Africa. Long Way Down has one main setting in this story, an elevator. Or is it Will’s subconscious at work, forcing him to think about what he intends to do and what it will accomplish? Before he reaches the lobby at 9:09:09, six ghosts will enter the elevator—victims, perpetrators, or both, entangled in a chain of murder, misidentification, and revenge that led to Shawn’s death; together they challenge Will’s perspective on the killing and on his role in vigilante justice. The word Will can be used as a proper name, but also as a verb and a noun. At the beginning of the novel, Will reflects that the story he is about tell will either make readers want to be his friend or not want to be his friend at all. Research the epidemic of gun violence in America, specifically looking at gang-related gun violence (note: the Chicago Tribune has excellent special reporting on gun violence in Chicago). How much time elapsed between the first stop and the bottom floor? Next, he lays out The Rules: don’t cry, don’t snitch, always get revenge. by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books. Now, according to the “rules” passed from father to son, brother to brother, revenge is the next order of business, and Carlon Riggs, a member of the Dark Suns gang, is in Will’s crosshairs. Now, two days later, Will is heartbroken and desperate as he abides by "The Rules" he's been taught all of his life; he won't cry and he won't snitch. Compare the development of these themes in Reynolds’s novel to a classic revenge story like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Iliad, or The Count of Monte Cristo. On each floor, a ghost from Will's past enters the elevator bringing back memories good and bad. He’s emboldened by the gun tucked into his waistband: “I put my hand behind my back/ felt the imprint/ of the piece, like/ another piece/ of me/ an extra vertebra,/ some more/ backbone.” As Will makes his way to the ground floor of his building, the elevator stops to accept passengers, each an important figure from his past, all victims of gun violence. The last person who enters the elevator is Shawn. What rule do both brothers break? Long Way Down Introduction + Context. What message is he trying to convey with his words and actions? They immediately did what they had been trained to do: "Pressed our lips to the/ pavement and prayed/ the boom, followed by/ the buzz of a bullet,/ ain't meet us." Even if Will has never used a gun—never even held a gun before—rules are rules. Long Way Down is an intense read with a beautifully ambiguous ending that highlights the humanity of those who are regularly touched by and contribute to gun violence. Reynolds masterfully weaves in textured glimpses of the supporting characters. A cannon. Through flashbacks, Will shares memories of his brother. This book is written in a poetic form and is easy to follow. Using details revealed in the text, create a character sketch or character collage of the book’s protagonist. wow wow wow wow i loved this so much. A Long Way Down was published in 2005 in the UK. Gripping and lightning fast, this will be a strong recommendation for discussion, particularly within groups of varied reading interests and abilities. It will pair well with Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give and Reynolds's previous works. First, 15-year-old Will Holloman sets the scene by relating his brother’s, Shawn’s, murder two days prior—gunned down while buying soap for their mother. How does Will recognize the first ghost that enters the elevator? Can't Wait! He finds a gun in Shawn's dresser—one bullet under a full clip—and sets off to kill the person who killed his brother. Poets.org Donate Donate. The Long Way Down quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Gun. A must read IMO! Atheneum, 2017. A Long Way Down Poem by Leria Hawkins. We assign a color and icon like this one to each theme, making it easy to track which themes apply to each quote below. Afterward, Will says, "me and Tony/ waited like we always do,/ for the rumble to stop,/ before picking our heads up/ and poking our heads out/ to count the bodies./ This time/ there was only one": Shawn. I also enjoyed ow it refereed back to different scenarios throughout the read. The ghosts all know one another as confederates in death, and all history that might have once made them enemies is now overshadowed by their detachment from mortal issues; they can share cigarettes and a mildly sardonic view of the absurdity of their collective backstory. Unlike a traditional prose novel, Long Way Down is written in verse. Reynolds's work is rich with symbolism, the verse lending a feeling of immediacy to the 300-page, 60-second journey. I'll admit it, at the beginning I was a little confused about the way this book was written. I’m beginning to think I’m bound to love stories told in verse. October 24th 2017 7. I think the question 'Are you coming?' Download Save. 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. This includes things like length, shape, line breaks (including the use of enjambment and caesura), and spacing on the page. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser, Jason Reynolds's Track Series: Ghost; Patina; Sunny; Lu. Will enjoys finding anagrams, especially when the anagram illuminates or comments on the meaning of the original word. Why did Uncle Mark start dealing drugs? What could be done to solve this problem? Ghost wants to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school track team, but his past is ... “Stunning, gut-punching.” —BCCB (starred review) “Vividly imagined and haunting.” —Booklist (starred review) When an insect-borne ... “Stunning, gut-punching.” —BCCB (starred review) “Vividly imagined and haunting.” —Booklist (starred review) When an insect-borne When Will nervously grumbles about the slow elevator, Buck quips that it’s a long way down and laughs at Will’s insistence that he has work to do. Whether it’s magic schools, dystopias, paranormal love stories, or contemporary explorations of important real-life issues, young adult books... An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is. Identify a section of the novel where you think the format adds meaning to a passage and explain how the poem’s format impacts the meaning. it feels like God be flashing photos of his children, awkward, amazing, tucked in his wallet for the world to see. Long Way Down is more than a just a moving novel in verse—it’s a project. How do their personal experiences inform their music? Reynolds's 2017 book, Long Way Down, is a novel written in verse. Now that the reader is up to speed, Will tucks Shawn’s gun into his waistband and steps into an elevator, steeled to execute rule number three and shoot his brother’s killer. Refresh and try again. See all 37 questions about Long Way Down…. A piece. This fact shows on every page, in every word, and beyond the poetry. (Oct.). Why do you think Will’s father pulls the gun on Will? 10. Told in verse, this title is fabulistic in its simplicity and begs to be discussed.
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