Kekla Magoon

A 2015 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson dies from two gunshot wounds, his community is thrown into an uproar. Tariq was black. The shooter, Jack Franklin, is white. In the aftermath of Tariq's death, everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events line up. Day by day, new twists further obscure the truth. Tariq's friends, family, and community struggle to make sense of the tragedy, and to cope with the hole left behind when a life is cut short. In their own words, they grapple for a way to say with certainty: This is how it went down. This title has Common Core connections.

How It Went Down

Lara Engle

Told from the perspectives of 18 different people surrounding the shooting death of a black teenager on the street, How It Went Down heartwrenchingly probes the question of who a person becomes when they can no longer speak for themselves. Whose voice rings out loudest? Whose will dominates? And how will everyone move on after seeing how it all went down?

A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson dies from two gunshot wounds, his community is thrown into an uproar. Tariq was black. The shooter, Jack Franklin, is white. In the aftermath of Tariq's death, everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events line up. Day by day, new twists further obscure the truth. Tariq's friends, family, and community struggle to make sense of the tragedy, and to cope with the hole left behind when a life is cut short. In their own words, they grapple for a way to say with certainty: This is how it went down. How It Went Down is a timely story by acclaimed author Kekla Magoon who won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for The Rock and the River, and whose book X :A Novel (written with Ilyasah Shabazz) was longlisted for the National Book Award. This title has Common Core connections.

McKenzie McWhorter

This was a really powerful book about how so many people can view the same situation so differently. I liked the style of writing but I felt like the ending was a little abrupt for some characters.

Laura

This is one of those Very Important Books. I'm not crazy about a lot of those books because so many of them are so heavy-handed they don't actually have any staying power in my mind and just end up annoying me. I don't like to be preached at. 

But I liked this book. It didn't feel too much like morals were shoved down my throat. I have read one other novel by Magoon, X, which she cowrote with his (Malcolm X's) daughter. I also ended up really enjoying that book, though I think I preferred that one to this one. 

I'll actually start with the good first. The first thing I really liked was how each character had a very distinctive voice and that some of the chapters were written in vernacular. I love novels like that. It reminded me of books like The Boy in the Black Suit (which I really enjoyed- if you haven't read it and you're in the mood for some contemporary pick it up) or X. I also liked how you could tell a lot about each character based off how much of it is used.

I think Magoon, just based off this one book, has a real talent for character writing. Little is actually told us, most is shown. In my opinion, this is done the best in Kimberly, who ended up being one of my favorite characters. It's obvious from the way she acts how deeply insecure she is, and how her relationship with Sloan came from that insecurity. Their whole thing gave me icky (for lack of a better word) feelings and his obsession with her purity and innocence was almost Lolita-esque. 

Continue reading this review on my blog here: http://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/20...

How It Went Down

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