Long Way Down
Paperback · Young adult, ages 13 to 17
$13.99
In stock
Why we chose it
Will is fifteen. His brother is gone, and Will steps onto an elevator with a decision to make. The whole book happens in about a minute, told in verse, and every floor brings someone back from his past. It is short enough for a reader who says they do not like books, and deep enough for a book club. We hand this one to teens and adults alike.
— Nia
A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Printz Honor Book A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021)
New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds's "tour de force" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) novel in verse takes place in sixty potent seconds: the time it takes a kid to go down an elevator--and decide whether or not he's going to murder the guy who killed his brother.
Will's older brother, Shawn, has been shot.
Dead.
Will feels a sadness so great, he can't explain it. But in his neighborhood there are THE RULES:
No. 1: Crying.
Don't.
No matter what.
No. 2: Snitching Don't.
No matter what.
No. 3: Revenge Do.
No matter what.
So fifteen-year-old Will puts a gun in the waistband of his jeans and sets out to do just that. Avenge his brother. But when he gets on the elevator, it inexplicably stops on every floor, and each time, a different person--each connected to his brother--steps on. And each person gives Will a bigger piece of the story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END...if Will gets off that elevator.
Not to mention that each person who gets on that elevator is...dead.
Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.
About the author
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a 2024 MacArthur Fellow, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020-2022 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain't Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); Twenty-Four Seconds from Now...; and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.
- Publisher
- Atheneum Books
- Published
- April 2, 2019
- Pages
- 336
- Grades
- Grade 8 to 12
- ISBN
- 9781481438261
- Collections
- Banned & Challenged, Kids & Young Readers