Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher, STEAM facilitator, and coach in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
This story follows a fifteen-year-old boy named William Holloman, throughout the two days following his older brother being shot and killed. This is a book that has been banned due to guns and violence, but it is incredibly powerful and my favorite of this series exploring the 2024 Fall theme- Through the Eyes of a Child.
I love that the events of this story take place in 60 seconds. Sixty ticks of a clock are all it takes to make a choice that could change the rest of your life. Often it isn’t even that long. How many people do we know, maybe it is even ourselves, that have made a hasty choice and had outcomes we weren’t expecting. The ghosts of the elevator impress upon Will the predestined, yet fruitlessness of revenge as a part of life, “There are rules and rules must be followed.”
In many cultures, there are very strong ties to standing up for or “honoring” others. This can look a lot of different ways but it can be VERY hard to break the cycle of revenge. Maybe this is why the ghosts in the elevator have such a matter of fact attitude about it. I watch my students struggle daily with the ability to not be provoked into split second decisions, as well as, “getting even” with others who have wronged them. I find it interesting engaging in those conversations where they aren’t sorry for what they’ve done because the other person “deserved it,” often sounding like “They disrespected me, Ms. Sadler!”
The truth is this work is some of the most important work I do daily. It means more for their future than the science lesson that was taking place when impulsivity and pride are on the line. To me this book gave me a less fantasized and less Victorian version of Charles Dickens,’ A Christmas Carol. The way the ghosts were people of the past continuing to deliver the lessons “he needs.” In our daily lives we cannot know the future with certainty. We can speculate outcomes and often get close, but it is never for certain.
I love the way this book works with that real part of life. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come will always be an unattainable mirage. As the elevator doors open, and Will’s choices become more real, he will eventually make a choice after sixty seconds that will have various ghosts of the present and past following him for a lifetime.
This is Jessica Sadler, and you are listening to the High Plains Public Radio Reader’s Book Club.
