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 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); 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.

Reviews

Fifteen-year-old Will, immobilized with grief when his older brother Shawn is
shot and killed, slowly comes to mull The Rules in his head. There are three: don't
cry, don't snitch, and "if someone you love / gets killed, / find the person / who
killed / them and / kill them." So Will locates Shawn's gun, leaves his family's
eighth-floor apartment, and--well, here is where this intense verse novel becomes
a gripping drama, as on each floor of the descending elevator Will is joined by yet
another victim or perpetrator in the chain of violence that took his brother's life.
Shawn's best friend Buck gets into the elevator on seven; Dani, Will's friend from
childhood, gets in on six; Will and Shawn's uncle Mark gets in on five, in a cloud
of cigarette smoke. 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. The poetry is stark, fluently using line breaks and page-turns for
dramatic effect; the last of these reveals the best closing line of a novel this season.
Read alone (though best aloud), the novel is a high-stakes moral thriller; it's also a
perfect if daring choice for readers' theater. --The Horn Book **STARRED** "July/August 2017"

Spanning a mere one minute and seven seconds, Reynolds' new free-verse novel is an intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger. 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. Next, he lays out The Rules: don't cry, don't snitch, always get revenge. 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. Yet, the simple seven-floor descent becomes a revelatory trip. At each floor, the doors open to admit someone killed by the same cycle of violence that Will's about to enter. He's properly freaked out, but as the seconds tick by and floors count down, each new occupant drops some knowledge and pushes Will to examine his plans for that gun. Reynolds' concise verses echo like shots against the white space of the page, their impact resounding. 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. In this all too real portrait of survival, Reynolds goes toe-to-toe with where, or even if, love and choice are allowed to exist. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A noisy buzz always surrounds this critically acclaimed author's work, and the planned tour and promo campaign will boost this book's to a siren call.--Booklist Online, STARRED REVIEW "July 1st, 2017"

The newest work for teens by Jason Reynolds (author of As Brave As You and Ghost, and 2017 Indies First spokesperson) begins with 15-year-old William speaking directly to the reader: "I haven't/ told nobody the story/ I'm about to tell you./ And truth is, you probably ain't/ gon' believe it either/ gon' think I'm lying/ or I'm losing it, / but I'm telling you, / this story is true." 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. Shortly after Shawn left, Will and his friend, who were talking outside, heard shots. 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." 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]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." 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. 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." 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. With the gun tucked into the waistband of his pants, Will gets on the elevator at 9:08:02 a.m. The next 200-plus pages of action take place between the time Will enters the elevator and when it reaches the lobby a moment later, at 9:09:09 a.m. As Will takes the long trip down, a new person boards at every floor. Each new person is a friend or loved one from Will's past; each new person is dead, a victim of gun violence. As the ghosts of those killed congregate in the elevator to tell Will their stories, their interconnected tales are untangled and Will begins to see how the things he thinks he knows may not be true at all, and that The Rules just perpetuate the cycle of violence and keep everyone down. Will's trip between floors and through time is powerful and painful. Reynolds's work is rich with symbolism, the verse lending a feeling of immediacy to the 300-page, 60-second journey. 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. --Si�n 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.--Shelf Awareness "September 6, 2017"