Parents' Guide to

Give a Boy a Gun

By Matt Berman, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Intense school-shooting book will trigger heated discussion.

Book Todd Strasser Coming of Age 2000
Give a Boy a Gun Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Community Reviews

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age 15+

Based on 5 parent reviews

aperson101
aperson101 Adult
June 9, 2012
age 10+

Give A Boy A Gun

I read this book when I was 10, and I was fine. My school recommended it, meaning it is alright for children. It really depends on how mature someone is. It mentions sex and drinking a couple times, but mainly revolves around a theme of violence. A child should not read this if they get nightmares easy, or are jittery when it comes to violence. Otherwise, this book is excellently written, informational, and amazing.

This title has:

Educational value
Great role models
Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
1 person found this helpful.
NYMom
NYMom Adult
September 16, 2018
age 18+

Horrific and disturbing. Definitely NOT for students without adult or teacher guidance.

This book has graphic descriptions of violence and should not be read by adolescents or teens without guidance. The first page of the book is a suicide note from one of the boys. The second page of the book is a graphic description of what happens to the human brain when a bullet enters it. There is a mention of Gary hanging from a flagpole, and there is a first-person discussions of a teen's drug use while in school- not to mention the one boy's kneecaps being blown away during the rampage at the school dance. It ends when one boy shoots himself in the head and the other is beaten into a coma by the bullies who tormented the two of them. Fun times. This book is seriously disturbing, and there are better ways to teach impressionable adolescents about bullying and school gun violence. No child under 18 should read this book without guidance from a knowledgeable adult. Without guidance, a young person (who may have been mercilessly bullied himself) might identify with the characters and see violence as a valid choice. We can do better than this.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
See all 5 parent reviews

What's the Story?

High school students Gary Searle and Brendan Lawlor enter a school dance heavily armed with automatic weapons, having chained the doors shut and booby-trapped the exits with homemade bombs. They intend a carefully-planned payback against their schoolmates, mostly members of the football team, who have persecuted and tormented them for years. Using transcripts and interviews with survivors, this fictional story torn from the headlines chronicles events leading up to, during, and following the shootings. The author includes, at the foot of many of the pages, factoids about real school shootings, guns, efforts at gun control, and statistics about death and violence in our society. He concludes with a list of related events that took place while he was writing the book, a partial list of school shootings, and a bibliography. Part of the book's proceeds are donated to gun-control organizations.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5):
Kids say (13):

Author Todd Strasser does a frighteningly effective job of making his readers think -- about guns, bullying, and more -- and the result is one very disturbing book. Some of the ways it is disturbing are clearly intentional; others are less clear. Readers ready for the intense material will find a provocative and compelling novel certain to trigger much heated discussion. This book could be useful to high school teachers and administrators looking to raise gun control awareness among students.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how the fictional events described in this book mirror real-life school shootings that you've read about in the news or seen on television. What can we do to help prevent this kind of violence -- and also help bullied kids before they take such extreme measures?

  • What do you think of the author's use of facts and statistics? Do you think it adds to the story's importance -- or does it make it too much of a "message book"?

Book Details

  • Author: Todd Strasser
  • Genre: Coming of Age
  • Book type: Fiction
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Publication date: January 1, 2000
  • Publisher's recommended age(s): 12 - 12
  • Number of pages: 146
  • Last updated: July 12, 2017

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