Give a Boy a Gun

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Summary: By a stupid liberal, for stupid liberals.
Review: Here we go again. A liberal tries to subtly state his case and covince others to become advocates against guns and the second amendment in general. Lies. Manipulation. That's what this guy's resorting to. Don't you people know a gun can't control someone, influence their actions? "Give a boy a gun." The title implies the weapons themselves convinced the boys to do evil things. That's the problem with you liberals. Just because something's a weapon, doesn't mean it has to kill, or harm. There are many sporting, defensive and recreational applications for guns. Guns don't kill people, losers with guns kill people. "Give a boy a gun." Ha! This book is the embodiment of an idiotic principle. Just a way to rally anti-gun advocates. Foul.

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Summary: Wannna Read A Great Book?
Review: If you are looking for a great book, I highly recomend Give A Boy A Gun. This story talks about two young boys, Brendan and Gary, who are picked on by the high school jocks. Brendan and Gary are like two peas in a pod, but they are still a little different. Gary is always depressed, and Brendan is into guns, bombs, and gory video games. Soon they realize that the only way to solve their problems is with guns, bombs, drugs , and alchohol! Then one night at a school dance they hold all of the kids hostage, and they have guns and bombs. I am not going to tell you the rest, you'll have to read it to find out!

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Summary: give a boy a gun review
Review: Give a boy a gun is a book about two guys named Gary and Brendon who hold Middleton High School hostage at one of there dances and try to get revenge on all the people who made there lives miserable. The author tells the story like a reporter and get's everyones side of the story. Overall this book is very chilling and very real. There is always people like Sam who don't like people that are different so they think it's cool to make fun of them. But there will always be people like Gary and Brendon who want to take out those kind of people and that's what they try to do in this book. Overall i liked this book very much.

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Summary: Give A Boy A Gun
Review: Give a Boy a Gun is a chilling account of what happens when the mission of public education becomes clouded by the values of popular culture. Middleton High School seems to be run by the football players, at least in the eyes of Gary and Brendan-kids that are the butt of every joke. Teachers and administrators don't acknowledge the cruelty of the system lest they have to confront it. The story unfolds in a series of interview segments, emails, and journal entries told from the perspective of football players, outcasts, teachers, parents and administrators. As you get to know the subjects through these interviews, you can see the world of high school through their eyes. The story is artfully done and I had to keep reminding myself that Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser is fiction.

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Summary: Power
Review: I was drawn to this book, and now I know why.

I was always interested in the horrible things that happen in this society. I've been surrounded with violence, and I sort of considered my self jaded from these kinds of books, because I didn't want to be covered in the slime of depressive happenings. But I don't like being lied to, and this book definitely doesn't lie. You find out the truth, but not just one person's truth, but what EVERYBODY involved thought.

Teachers, the press... People always says that the reason school violence occurs is because of teasing and being friendless, but I never really believed that, because if there's nothing violent there, how can little things make it come to bear? But this book shows you that the littlest spark can be blown on to turn it into a fire.

It also makes you wonder: who really are the bad guys? Who can really say the cause for everything? Was it the jocks? Was it the the cheerleaders? Or was it the person who seemed to know exactly what you are going through? These questions were raised in my mind, along with a lot of others.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that this wasn't just another book on school violence. It was a book that was so realistic that it made you doubt basic beliefs with the possible truth. Little touches like adding facts about guns at the bottom of each page (facts that make you go, 'Woah! What?'), and the timeline at the end, make it all scarily true.

Eight out of five stars. I would never have believed that my favorite childhood author could come out with something that packs this much of a punch.

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Summary: the novel Give a Boy a Gun
Review: GIVE A BOY A GUN
In my opinion this was one of the best novels I have read. Todd Strasser is a great author. He has this writing technique that draws your attention to the book. I like the way he expresses his feelings.
This great novel is about two dangerous boys named Branden Lawlor and Gary Searle that plan to kill all the football players, the cheerleaders, and the teachers at a school dance party. The reason that they want to kill this specific crowd of people is because of all the pain these people have put them through, teasing them every day of their lives, pushing them into walls like they were nobody in life, beating them up because they were different from the other people that were in the "popular crowd." Also, they wanted to kill the teachers because the teachers saw what was happening in school and they didn't pay much attention. It looked like as they agreed with the "popular crowd" and what they did to the so called "nerds."
Soon Gary Searle and Branden Lawlor start to develop this hatred for these people that torture them every day. They start planning how they wanted to kill them all and how each victim should die slowly and painfully. As they steal a couple of guns from a neighbor's house and build some deadly bombs.
You would need to read this book to understand what a great novel it is and to find out the surprising twist ending. Also, at the bottom of each page you can find interesting facts about guns, how they have killed so many teenagers at schools around the country, and the book gives you some real events that have happened in schools throughout the United States. These facts will help you understand how dangerous guns are and how they can affect someone's life drastically.
I understand why these teenagers decide to do because, having someone threaten me, beat me up, and calling me names everyday of your life. I understand how Gary and Branden feel because I am a teenager myself. I think the worst part in this whole story was that the teacher had the power to stop this drama that was occurring and didn't. That is why I understand what Branden and Gary did because sometimes when you're a teenager you think there is no alternative but to end with your fear and chose a wrong decision that will lead you to a wrong path. Also the teachers never helped them resolve their problems they were going through.
I have enjoyed and learned a valuable lesson from this thrilling book. Hopefully you decide to read the fascinating novel Give a Boy a Gun. I recommend this novel to everybody that wants to learn about school violence and how they can stop it. Or to anybody that just wants to learn and enjoy a good masterpiece. I especially recommend this book to all the teachers to know what is happening in the students' learning environment and what they can keep an eye on. Also to the teenagers that may be going through the same experience as Branden and Gary went through, don't be scared to speak out. Killing people is not the solution. There is help for you.

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Summary: Disappointing
Review: I read this book because I had read the books about the 2 girls killed in Columbine and had thoroughly enjoyed them. I was vastly disappointed. This book was so boring and written very poorly. It was like the author couldn't make up his mind about whether to make this book a novel on nonfiction. In short, don't waste your time.

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Summary: so-so
Review: Okay, this was a halfway decent book. There were a few gaping holes though.

1. The preps were, okay, TOO shallow. Not one of them actually realized what they had made happen. Okay, I've been picked on but no one is really like "Deidre"...

2. Did Brenden and Gary not realize they were walking, talking Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold ripoffs? Did anyone else not realize everyone was a Columbine ripoff?

Brenden Lawlor - Eric Harris
Gary Searle - Dylan Klebold
Ryan Clancy - Brooks Brown
Allison Findley - Robyn Anderson (somewhat)
Sam Flanch - Evan Todd
Dustin Williams - Isaiah Shoels (somewhat)

Although you do get points for referring to Bohemian Rhapsody. Any novel that works Queen into it rules.

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Summary: Give A Boy A Gun
Review: I couldnt put this book down. Give A Boy A Gun was by Todd Strasser and it was in diary form and it had 208 pages in it. There was a lot of action in the book. The plot was awesome it made me feel like I was in Brendans body. Brendan Lawlor and Gary searle were in high school and got picked on and beat up a lot because they werent afraid to be a little bit different. The book explained in great detail about what happenen at the dance when Breandan and Gary held a lot of students hostage.I couldnt put this book down because of all of the little details Todd Strasser put in the book. After reading Give A Boy A Gun I want to read more books by the author.

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Summary: Richie's Picks: GIVE A BOY A GUN
Review: I painfully recall those couple of years in my early adolescence when I really got pushed around a lot. For me it was junior high in the late 60's when I'd be constantly harassed by older or bigger kids. Walk down the hall or down the stairs and get tripped or shoved into a locker or have your books slammed out of your arms sending your papers flying everywhere. Sit on the school bus and be whacked with a book by a passerby or have your hat snatched. Occasionally I remember an even bigger kid coming along and asserting his dominance over the bully who was picking on me -- yep, that was me, the bottom of the food chain--but usually these incidents became solitary, painful memories of the time when I was a good, quiet student treading water in a sea of raging hormones.

I cannot recall ever having the urge to exact revenge (beyond a hand gesture). But, then again, it was a time that, in retrospect, seemed to pass soon enough as I came into my own in high school. But what would I have been like if I'd had to endure year after year of such torture through high school as well as junior high?

In GIVE A BOY A GUN by Todd Strasser, we meet two teenage boys who, after enduring years of torture by their school's most popular students, do take revenge. In a fictional account which recalls real-life school shootings in Littleton (CO), Jonesboro (AK), and Springfield (OR), the two teens take a group of students and teachers hostage at a dance in the high school gymnasium.

Strasser presents the story in the form of quotes by the teens (Brendan Lawlor and Gary Searle) as well as their friends, their tormentors and other schoolmates, current and former teachers, their parents and neighbors.

At the foot of many pages the author provides us with facts concerning gun availability, violence and manufacture as well as quotes relating to those tragic real episodes which have been occurring in schools across America. (Information Strasser has compiled includes the federal estimate that there are roughly 250 million people and 240 million firearms in America, that 12 percent of students say they know another student who has brought a gun to school, and that in 1996 there were more than 6,000 American students expelled for bringing a gun to school.)

In the story we learn how the physical and verbal abuse heaped daily upon the two teens by popular football players and the in-crowd is tolerated by the faculty. We meet teachers who, themselves, treat the unpopular kids as outcasts in the classroom. As Allison Findley (Gary's girlfriend) points out: "If Deirdre Bunsun is talking in world history, it's like 'Excuse me, Deirdre, now pay attention.' But if Allison Findley is talking, Ms. Arnold stops the class and stares at her. And then the rest of the kids stare at her. It's a light slap on the wrist for Dierdre, it's public humiliation for Allison."

We come to understand how Brendan, Gary, and their little circle of friends seek to escape from unremitting daily reinforcement of the message that they are worthless vermin. We hear from Gary's mom who was concerned about his spending the better part of Saturdays "cocooned within his quilt." We learn how Brendan grows up hating and reacting to injustices, is at one point compared to Rosa Parks by an old friend, and tries to take out his aggressions on video games. We see transcripts of their chatroom discussions. We hear how over a period of years the boys' desire to kill the kids who are torturing them evolves from the relatively innocent anger of youngsters to the determined and complicated planning that leads to the story's climactic evening in the gymnasium. Allison Findley wonders at one point about the darkness that she has seen developing in Brendan: "I don't know where it came from. Whether it had always been inside him, or whether it just started to grow because of the way people treated him in school."

Several of the story's most insightful quotes are from an overburdened school counselor, Beth Bender, who survives that night in the gym: "And that's when I had an epiphany. Can't you see why they were doing it? They had no protection. They couldn't get away from the bullies and tormentors. Not here, not in jail, not anywhere. So why not kill them? So why not kill themselves? What difference would it make either way? In another passage Beth refutes the assertion that this was an unpreventable act by crazies. "Every year you hear about kids walking into their school and shooting classmates and teachers. You don't hear about them walking into McDonald's and shooting people. They don't go to the town swimming pool or the movies and do it. Most of these kids live in neighborhoods with elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. But they don't go to some other school. They always go to their own school. It's not random. It's a message, and the sooner we wake up and listen, the better.

A message that Beth wants us to hear is that parents, teachers, administrators, and thoughtful students with influence on their peers need to begin the process of instituting programs and procedures to teach conflict resolution, to teach respect for one another's differences, and to prohibit the teasing, the physical and the verbal abuse that we see Gary and Brendan having to endure from all the way back in grade school. There needs to be zero tolerance of name-calling and the other abuse these boys are subjected to. Of course, the book's other theme is the gun issue. It appears that the debate over guns in America will continue beyond my lifetime, but, clearly, the fact that temperamental, hormonal teenagers are so easily able to obtain guns is an issue that has got to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Todd Strasser surely has written one of the year's most thought-provoking books. Fail to read it at your own risk.
Richie Partington...