Give a Boy a Gun - Hardcover

BANG! Gunshots echo through the gym. Two heavily armed students, Gary and Brendan, hold their classmates hostage at a high school dance. Their targets: the football players and teachers who have tormented them. Their weapons: semiautomatic rifles stolen from a neighbor. Their motive: revenge. In Give a Boy a Gun, the interweaving voices of students, teachers, friends, and the gunmen themselves re-create the harrowing crisis at Middletown High and the reasons behind Gary and Brendan's rampage. Mirroring the voices on each page are facts about guns and school violence that offer a blistering counterpoint to a tragedy that rings dreadfully true to life. A stunning work of fiction taken straight from today's headlines, Give a Boy a Gun is a stirring wake-up call to stop the violence and explore the role of guns in the lives of teenagers.

Ever since his 1981 bestseller The Wave, based on a true incident in which a teacher conducted an experiment in peer pressure with his students, Todd Strasser has been concerned with problems of teenage stress and violence. With the recent rash of shootings in schools, he feels compelled once again to address these issues, as well as how the availability of guns can affect the emotional decisions of teens.

Strasser has written many award-winning novels for teenagers, including How I Changed My Life, How I Spent My Last Night on Earth, and Girl Gives Birth to Own Prom Date, which became the feature film Drive Me Crazy. A novelist for more than twenty-five years, Strasser speaks frequently at schools about the craft of writing, and conducts writing workshops for young people. He lives with his family in a suburb of New York City.