Gary Younge

A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives

Another Day in the Death of America

Saturday, November 23rd, 2013. It was just another day in America; an unremarkable Saturday on which ten children and teens were killed by gunfire. The youngest was nine; the oldest was nineteen. White, Black and Latino, they fell in suburbs, hamlets and ghettos. None made the national news. There was no outrage about their passing. It was just another day in the death of America, where on a daily average - seven children and teens are killed by guns. Younge picked this day at random, searched for their families and tells their stories. The nine-year-old opened the door and was shot in the head by his mother's ex-boyfriend. The eleven-year-old was killed by his friend at a sleep over in rural Michigan. The eighteen-year-old gang member, on Chicago's South Side, was shot in a stairwell just days after being released from prison. Through ten moving chapters - one for each child - Younge explores the way these children lived and lost their short lives. He finds out who they were, who they wanted to be, the environments they inhabited, and what this might tell us about society at large. What emerges is a searing portrait of childhood and youth in contemporary America.

Wynter

Me vs NRA after reading this book:



This review is taking me embarrassingly long to finish. Another Day in the Death of America is such an important and emotional book, I keep sitting here, typing sentences and immediately deleting them. I feel like I cannot do it justice. This book… is so very good.

Gary Younge has a real talent for writing persuasive essays, but he manages to keep a steady and convincing flow throughout a full length book too. Not even for an instant does it feel dragged out or padded with irrelevant information. Every chapter is lean and brings more to the discussion table. The thesis is never lost among tangential arguments, or muddled by overextended examples. Every point and every evidence hit right where it supposed to for a work that is hard dismiss once you read it. It lodges in your psyche for days afterwards.

I recommend everyone to read this book not only because it’s so well-crafted, but because... [more on Chaika Books]

Jade Flynn

A chilling compendium of children's lives that ended prematurely due to an avertible problem in the United States, told through Younge's precise piece of emotion fuelled investigative journalism.

Carolina Lopes

A great read for anyone trying to understrand more about gun violence and the environments in which it occurs, in the US society.

Grace M

Megan Parrott

Lamia Hajani

Liz Prinz

Gabriel Jönsson

Liam Byrne 

Jordan Robinson

A timely chronicle of what is now an ordinary day in America, where gun violence regularly takes the lives of children and teens, and leaves shattered families in its wake. Winner of the 2017 J. Anthony Lukas PrizeShortlisted for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Foundation AwardFinalist for the 2017 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in JournalismLonglisted for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non Fiction On an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of the lives lost during one such day. It could have been any day, but he chose November 23, 2013. Black, white, and Latino, aged nine to nineteen, they fell at sleepovers, on street corners, in stairwells, and on their own doorsteps. From the rural Midwest to the barrios of Texas, the narrative crisscrosses the country over a period of twenty-four hours to reveal the full human stories behind the gun-violence statistics and the brief mentions in local papers of lives lost. This powerful and moving work puts a human face-a child's face-on the "collateral damage" of gun deaths across the country. This is not a book about gun control, but about what happens in a country where it does not exist. What emerges in these pages is a searing and urgent portrait of youth, family, and firearms in America today.

Another Day in the Death of America A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives

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