Deborah Wiles

Includes a note by the author describing the sources for this story.

Kent State

Jeni Enjaian

What an incredible book.
I placed this book on my to do list since I read through the SCLA book award nominees every summer. Beyond that, I know nothing about the book, usually. That holds true for this book. Other than knowing the basic details about the Kent State shootings and the tragic deaths of the students, I did not know what format the book would take or how Wiles would present the tragedy. I adore her style. She uses different fonts and font formatting to represent different voices and although she does not explicitly introduce each "character," she does not need to. This book did not take me long to read but it sticks with me. I highly recommend this book.

Brianna Brown

I'm trying to diversify my reading, and non fiction is usually a big scary stay away situation for me. But I surprisingly really enjoyed this, at least in the ways that you CAN enjoy a really sobering and emotional retelling of a tragedy. And for something that happened in my own state, I knew a lot less about the Kent State shooting than I thought going into this. 
Also, I'd love to hear this in audiobook form. I think the way the verses are written and the different POVs would really shine that way!

Caitlin Hooker

Gus Stromberg

"From two-time National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles, a masterpiece exploration of one of the darkest moments in our history, when American troops killed four American students protesting the Vietnam War.May 4, 1970.Kent State University.As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why.Told in multiple voices from a number of vantage points -- protestor, Guardsman, townie, student -- Deborah Wiles's Kent State gives a moving, terrifying, galvanizing picture of what happened that weekend in Ohio . . . an event that, even 50 years later, still resonates deeply"--

Kent State

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