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Long Way Down Chapter 1, a twilight fanfic | FanFiction
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Long Way Down Chapter 1, a fast and the furious fanfic | FanFiction
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Book Talk | Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

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Spoilers

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Will introduces himself to the reader and swears that his story is true, though he understands if the reader doesn't believe it. He asks the reader to call him Will, like everyone else does. Only his mother calls him William, and his brother Shawn used to too, when he was trying to be funny-but last night, Shawn was killed. Will says that no matter what he doesn't or doesn't have in common with the reader, it's still horribly painful to see a loved one's blood outside of their body.

Though Will is disoriented and sad about Shawn's death, he isn't exactly surprised. When it happens, Will and his friend Tony are outside, wondering if they'll grow taller now that they're 15. Suddenly, gunshots ring out and they get down like they're supposed to. When they stand up, Will sees that Shawn is dead. He died fetching special soap for their mother's eczema. Shawn's girlfriend, Leticia, kisses him and shrieks, while Will and Shawn's mother moans. When the police arrive, a young officer seems to legitimately expect answers, but Will insists that when someone dies in his neighborhood, everyone pretends to be deaf and blind. The police put up yellow tape, zip Shawn into a body bag, and take him away. Will explains that in his neighborhood, "beef" gets passed around. It never does anything good, and it's what killed Shawn. Back in their eighth-floor apartment, Will's mother sobs while Will hides in his room. He tries hard to hold back tears, since "the Rules" of the neighborhood say that he shouldn't cry. The other two Rules are no snitching, and always seek revenge-this means that if a loved one is killed, you must kill their killer. Nobody can break the Rules.

Will describes his bedroom he shared with Shawn. Shawn's half is neat, while Will's is messy. The only thing amiss on Shawn's side is the middle drawer of his dresser, which contains his gun. Shawn wasn't an angelic person; once he turned 18, their mother stopped trying to control him. However, he was Will's favorite and only brother. He let Will start using his cologne when Will turned 13. The morning after Shawn's death, Will digs into the middle drawer and fishes out the gun. It feels about as heavy as an infant, and Will knows that with it, he can follow Rule No. 3 and take down Carlson Riggs, a former friend of Shawn's whom he believes is also Shawn's killer. Will lays out his evidence for why Riggs killed Shawn: Riggs was a member of the Dark Suns, a gang whose territory included the shop where Shawn had to buy the special soap. Will also just knows Riggs did it-he's had lots of practice identifying bad guys from watching crime shows. The next morning, Will pulls the gun out and feels close to Shawn as he grips it. Will tucks the gun into the back of his waistband. His plan is to go early to Riggs's apartment so he can "do it." He creeps past his mother and out of the apartment, calls the elevator, and presses the L button.

On the seventh floor, a man gets on and checks that the L button is lit up. Will remembers how he and Shawn used to giggle that "L" meant anyone going to the lobby was a losers, and Will thinks that he's already chosen to be a loser. The man starts to look oddly at Will, and finally he turns around and shows Will his T-shirt, which has a photo of the man and a caption memorializing his own death. The man is Buck, and he's supposed to be dead. Will tries to wake himself up from what he thinks is a dream and deliberates about whether he should be scared or not. Buck was Shawn's mentor after Pop, the boys' father, died. Will wonders if Buck has come to "steal his breath," but Buck says he came to check on his gun. Will tries to adopt a tough stance and listens to Buck explain that he gave the gun to Shawn and told Shawn to keep the gun away from Will. Will announces that he found it anyway, and that he needs it to avenge Shawn's death and follow the Rules, just like Buck would've done. When Will nervously grumbles about the slow elevator, Buck quips that it's a long way down and laughs at Will's insistence that he has work to do. Buck says Will doesn't have it in him, and asks if he checked that the gun is loaded. Will almost shoots himself trying to check, so Buck takes the gun and announces that there are 15 bullets in it. There are supposed to be 16. Buck lights a cigarette and the elevator stops.

On the sixth floor, a beautiful young woman gets in. Will tries to check her out, but the gun digs into his back and makes him wince. The girl scolds Buck for smoking in the elevator and then asks Will why he has a gun. Will is disturbed-the girl can see Buck's ghost and somehow knows Will has a gun. Trying to play it cool, Will says he's not going to talk to a stranger about this, but the girl says she's not a stranger: she's known Will for a long time. She opens her purse and shows Will a photo of himself and his friend Dani when they were eight years old, on the day Dani died. He realizes the girl in front of him is Dani's ghost, and says that the day in the photo was the best and worst day of his life. They were playing on the playground when someone started firing gunshots around them, and Will watched Dani get shot and bleed to death while Shawn tried to shield them from the bullets. Will cried all night. The next morning, Shawn taught him the first Rule (no crying). When Will tried to follow it, he wanted to punch something. Now, in the elevator, Dani again asks Will why he needs the gun, and Will says he's going after Riggs. He explains the Rules to Dani so she doesn't think he's being violent for no reason. When she asks what happens if he misses, Will insists he won't. Dani then accepts a cigarette from Buck, which Buck lights as the elevator grinds to a stop.

The cigarette smoke seems to box Will in, and he figures that whoever's waiting to get on won't get into this crowded, smoky elevator. However, big hands reach into the elevator and grab Will's neck. Will yelps, leaps back, and reaches for his gun. He sees that the hands belong to the ghost of Uncle Mark, whom Will recognizes from the many photos of Mark around his house. Uncle Mark extremely tall and impeccably dressed, and he emotionally tells Will that he looks just like Pop. Uncle Mark was an aspiring filmmaker in life and wanted to make a movie based off of Pop and Will's mother's love story. When Will asks why Uncle Mark is here, Uncle Mark slowly asks the same question of Will and then menacingly forces him to answer. Will says he's following the Rules, just like Uncle Mark would've. Uncle Mark walks Will through the "scene" of killing Riggs, but when they get to the point of Will pulling the trigger, Will struggles to say it. Will tells the reader that Uncle Mark died after he lost his video camera and started dealing drugs to get money for a new one. It was lucrative for a few months until a young kid killed him. Uncle Mark asks Will what happens after he shoots, but Will insists that's the end. With a chuckle, Uncle Mark lights a cigarette and says that's never the end. The elevator stops again.

The ghost of Pop steps in on the fourth floor and immediately envelops Will in a hug. Pop died when Will was three, so Will doesn't remember anything about him. According to his mother, Pop died of a broken heart after Uncle Mark died, but according to Shawn he was killed at a payphone after killing Uncle Mark's killer. At that point, then-16-year-old Buck took Shawn under his wing. In the elevator, Pop and Will start to make small talk. Though Will wants to tell Pop everything, he doesn't-he doesn't want to look weak in front of the other ghosts. He vows not to cry, and when Pop asks Will what Will thinks he should do, Will says he should follow the Rules just like Pop did. This worries Pop, and he asks Will if Will has ever heard his story. Pop explains that he was broken when Uncle Mark died, and he followed the Rules. He killed the man he knew killed Uncle Mark, but couldn't sleep that night or touch his wife, Will, or Shawn. Will insists that Pop just did what he was supposed to do, but Pop says that's not true: he killed the wrong guy, even though he believed he had the right man. Hearing this, Will is disappointed that his father isn't the man he thought he was. He also wonders if he's disappointing Pop right now. Pop steps forward and pulls Will into a hug again. Will feels both confused and comforted until Pop grabs Will's gun and puts it to Will's head. Will shrieks for help, but the smoke blocks out everyone else in the elevator. After Will wets himself in fear, Pop removes the gun away and gives it back to Will. Uncle Mark offers Pop a cigarette, and when Buck lights it, the elevator stops.

A light-skinned stranger gets on and doesn't acknowledge anyone, so Will thinks he must be alive and real. Buck, however, approaches the stranger and shows the man the back of his T-shirt. They embrace happily, and Buck introduces the man as Frick, his killer. Will is shocked, especially when Buck asks if Shawn never shared this story. Will thinks that Shawn didn't, but he remembers Shawn saying that he knew who killed Buck and watching Shawn load his gun. Buck says that one day, he was with Shawn at the basketball court. Shawn was talking about an old friend who's now a Dark Sun, and who tried to get Shawn to stop buying the special soap for his mother in Dark Suns territory. Will knows Shawn was talking about Riggs. Buck explains that as they talked, he tried to show Shawn a gold chain he'd just stolen from a suburban kid. He gave the chain to Shawn to cheer him up, and Shawn left the court. Will explains how to become a Dark Sun: one must acquire a cigarette burn under the right eye, live nine blocks from Will's building, and perform a "Dark Deed," which can be robbing, beating, or killing someone. Frick pipes up and says that he was supposed to rob Buck as his Dark Deed, but when he approached Buck, Buck just laughed. When Buck then swiped at Frick, Frick got scared and shot him. Will asks what any of this has to do with Shawn, and Frick replies that Shawn followed the Rules. He pulls down his shirt to reveal a bloody bullet hole, and Buck explains that Shawn found out who Frick was from Tony, who spends his days at the basketball court talking about everything to make himself seem cool. Turning to Will, Buck asks how he knows Riggs killed Shawn. Will says it makes sense: Riggs avenged Frick's death. Frick, however, doesn't know who Riggs is. He lights his own cigarette and the elevator stops.

Nobody is there when the elevator doors open. Will is getting impatient and thinks the elevator feels like a coffin. When the doors are almost closed, fingers stop them and they open again to reveal Shawn, wearing the blood-soaked clothes he died in. Shawn steps in, warmly greets the other ghosts, and then turns to face Will. Will hugs Shawn, but Shawn just stands there awkwardly. Will tells Shawn everything and says he's trying to follow the Rules and kill Riggs. He confesses that he's scared, and wants Shawn to tell him if he's doing the right thing. Shawn starts to cry. Will tells Shawn that the first rule is that they can't cry, and looks away so that he doesn't start crying. But Will realizes that he doesn't love Shawn any less because he's crying-he's still Will's favorite and only brother. Shawn makes a pained, grinding sound as the elevator reaches the lobby. The doors open and all the ghosts step out after the smoke. Will stands in the elevator, wet, tear-stained, and afraid. Shawn turns around and asks Will if he's coming.

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Will introduces himself to the reader and swears that his story is true, though he understands if the reader doesn't believe it. He asks the reader to call him Will, like everyone else does. Only his mother calls him William, and his brother Shawn used to too, when he was trying to be funny-but last night, Shawn was killed.

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Long Way Down Summary and Study Guide

Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Long Way Down" by Jason Reynolds. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.

Overview

Long Way Down (2017) by Jason Reynolds is a young adult novel in free verse about Will Holloman, a young black boy struggling to make a decision after his brother Shawn is shot dead in the street. Will plans to seek revenge, but before he can leave the elevator of his building, he is greeted by a series of ghosts who confuse and complicate his perspective on Shawn's death and the idea of revenge killing. Long Way Down became a New York Times best-seller and received several prestigious honors in young adult literature, including a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Honor, an Edgar Award, a Walter Dean Myers Book Award, and a Printz Honor.
Plot Summary
The book begins as Will Hollomon, a 15-year-old boy living in a poor neighborhood in an unnamed city, witnesses his brother Shawn's death. Shawn is shot by someone in the Dark Suns gang while picking up special soap for his mother's skin condition. Will sets the scene, describing his neighborhood, the relationship he and his neighbors have with the police, and the basics of The Rules: no crying, no snitching, revenge.

Instead of crying for his brother, Will finds Shawn's gun in a dresser drawer and decides to kill Riggs-the Dark Sun gang member he believes killed Shawn. Will sneaks out past his sleeping mother the next morning and gets in the elevator to kill Riggs. But then a series of ghosts appear in the elevator, each with a connection to Will's past.

The first visitor is Buck, Shawn's street mentor. He tells Will he isn't tough enough to kill Riggs. Buck is the person who gave Shawn the gun. Next, Dani enters. She was Will's childhood crush; when Will was eight years old, he watched Dani die of a gunshot wound from a drive-by shooting on the playground. Dani asks an important question: " What if you / miss? " (142).

Next, Will's Uncle Mark enters. He forces Will to consider the long-term consequences of his actions, and what it would look and feel like to kill another man. Then Will's father enters and puts a gun to Will's head, trying to show his son what it feels like to be the victim of a random murder.

Finally, Shawn enters the elevator. He won't talk to Will, but he cries, breaking The Rules. Will is confused but loves his brother so deeply-it hurts to see his brother's grief.

When the elevator stops, Shawn asks Will, "You coming?" (306). The novel ends on a cliffhanger, as Will debates whether to follow the rules, like all the ghosts before him, or to make another choice for himself.

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Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Long Way Down" by Jason Reynolds. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.

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A Lot or a Little?

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

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Jason Reynolds' Long Way Down won a 2018 Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Author Honor, and Michael L. Printz Honor. It's a novel in free verse that tells the story of an African American teen boy at a crossroads. Determined to avenge his 19-year-old brother's death, Will, age 15,...

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Gripping, unnerving story of teen boy contemplating revenge. Read Common Sense Media's Long Way Down review, age rating, and parents guide.

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Ghost cover. A National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

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Jason Reynolds on "Long Way Down" at the 2018 LA Times Festival of Books

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@jasonreynolds83 • Instagram photos and videos

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the author Jason Reynolds is a 37 year old male who published the book "Long way down" in the year 2017.

Why does Jason Reynolds write books?

Reynolds was moved to write the book by his visits to juvenile detention centers, where he frequently encounters children caught in a cycle of violence that, under slightly different circumstances, might have been his own

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List of other books by Jason Reynolds:
Ghost
Patina
Sunny
Lu
Ain't Burned All the Bright
Stuntboy, in the Meantime
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Look Both Ways
My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.

For Every One

Miles Morales

As Brave As You

All American Boys

The Boy in the Black Suit

When I Was the Greatest

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Jason Reynolds: ‘What’s unusual about my story is that I became a writer’

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The American author on his gut response to a friend’s death, how to get young people reading, and the value of crochet

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Jason Reynolds (@JasonReynolds83) / Twitter

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Tweets by JasonReynolds83

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Book Review || Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds - Bing video

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Top suggestions for long way down jason reynolds reviewsA Long Way Downby Jason Reynolds Book ReviewLong Way DownBook Jason ReynoldsLong Way DownNovel ReviewTop suggestions for long way down jason reynolds reviewsLong Way DownFull EpisodesLong Way DownSeason 1Long Way DownBookThe Long Way DownMovieJ…

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Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing several poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, When I Was The Greatest, which won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

In the next four years, Reynolds wrote eight more novels, most notably the New York Times best-selling Track series- (2016), Patina (2017), Sunny (2018), Lu (2018)-and As Brave As You (2016). Ghost was a National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature and As Brave As You won the Kirkus Prize, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teen, and the Schneider Family Book Award. Reynolds also wrote a Marvel Comics novel called Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017).

In 2017, Reynolds returned to poetry with Long Way Down, a novel in verse that was named a Newbery Honor book, a Printz Honor Book, and best young adult work by the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards. In 2019, he wrote Look Both Ways, for which he won a Carnegie Medal.

Reynolds was named as the Library of Congress' national ambassador for young people's literature in January 2020.

Early life, education and influences

Reynolds was born on December 6, 1983, in Washington, DC, and grew up just across Maryland border in Oxon Hill, a neighborhood where his mother, a special education teacher in a Maryland public school, could afford a house with a yard and enough space for Reynolds, his three siblings, and sometimes other extended family.

At nine years old, Reynolds was inspired by Queen Latifah's third album,Black Reign, to start writing poetry. Outside of her rap, few literary works spoke to his experience of urban life growing up as a black child and then teenager in the 1980s and 1990s, and he didn't start reading books until he was 17. In the meantime, Tupac and Biggie also formed major influences.

One of Reynolds's earliest poems dealt with his grandmother's death in 1994 when he was 10. He wrote a few lines in an effort to console his mother, who printed the poem on the program for the funeral, and after that Reynolds wrote poems as each of his grandmother's siblings passed. Moved by these experiences of "the power of language", he continued to pursue poetry through high school, graduating from Bishop McNamara High School in 2000, and college, even as he received poor grades and discouragement from professors in his English courses at the University of Maryland (he ultimately graduated with a BA in English.)

While an undergraduate, Reynolds met collaborator Jason Griffin, who became his roommate. Reynolds was also introduced to spoken word in this period and began performing, including eventually solo shows, and in 2001, his first book came out, a poetry collection called Let Me Speak.

During college, Reynolds also worked at a DC bookstore chain called Karibu Books, which specialized in African-American literature. At Karibu he encountered prose that resonated with him for the first time, such as Richard Wright's novel Black Boy. Enthralled with Wright's novel from the first page, Reynolds next began making his way through the great works of African-American literature on the store's shelves, reading James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. While at Karibu he also encountered street fiction, also known as urban fiction, which is a literary genre Reynolds compares to rap's capacity for being "raw and honest. For some kids, this was their life."

Reynolds moved back to Washington, D.C., from Brooklyn in 2016. He collects items related to African-American literature, including a letter by Langston Hughes, a pre-publication review copy of Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land and an autographed first edition copy of Toni Morrison's . He appeared on Antiques Roadshow in 2021 to discuss his collecting.

Reynolds does not start with a particular age audience in mind; instead he focuses on trying to write the voice of his characters authentically and lets that dictate whom the book would appeal to. All of his writings feature minority characters, which he sees as a reflection of the modern world.

Early works

After graduating from college, Reynolds moved to New York with a classmate, Jason Griffin; in 2005, the pair self-published a collaboration, collecting Griffin's visual art and Reynolds's poetry, called SELF. The book earned the pair an agent and then a book contract. Four years later they published My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.: Our Story. Our Way, a memoir about moving to New York to pursue their dreams, expressed through Reynolds's poetry and Griffin's illustrations. They published the book with the HarperTeen imprint of HarperCollins, working with editor Joanna Cotler (after Cotler retired, she referred him to Caitlin Dlouhy, who would become the editor on his next seven books). In the meantime, Reynolds moved home to DC in 2008 after losing his apartment in New York. He worked at a department store-the Lord & Taylor in North Bethesda, Maryland-to pay the bills, going to a Border's bookstore on his lunch break to see his book arrive on the shelf in 2009. Next, he became a caseworker in a mental health clinic his father directed.

Eventually, Reynolds returned to New York, again working in retail while he applied to graduate school, unsuccessfully because of his college grades. Nevertheless, he began writing a young adult novel-"often while standing at the cash register when business was slow" at the Rag & Bone store he managed-spurred by his friend Chris Myers, son of Walter Dean Myers and himself an author and illustrator. Reynolds had told Chris he had basically stopped writing, but Chris pointed out that with his father aging (the elder Myers died in 2014), there would soon be a shortage of new works written about young black children, particularly black boys. He suggested Reynolds look at some of his father's old works, and The Young Landlords particularly connected with Reynolds; the work gave Reynolds the confidence to "write in my voice, use my tongue, my language, my style, and write a story. Before that I always felt like I wasn't good enough because I wasn't Baldwin, or Toni Mor, or Richard Wright", but after reading Myers's work, "the floodgates were opened."

In 2014, Reynolds published When I Was The Greatest (with the Atheneum of Simon & Schuster), a young adult novel set in Reynolds' own neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. For the work, Reynolds won the 2015 Coretta Scott King/ John Steptoe Award for New Talent from the American Library Association.

In 2015, Reynolds published The Boy in the Black Suit, about a child grieving the loss of his mother. It won a Coretta Scott King Honor from the American Library Association.

Also in 2015, Reynolds published All American Boys, co-authored with Brendan Kiely. The book depicts a black teenager assaulted in a convenience store by a white police officer who wrongly suspects him of stealing. The book is written in two voices, with Reynolds writing from the point of view of the teenaged victim, Rashad Butler, in a hospital bed, while Kiely wrote the character Quinn Collins, a white teenager and family friend of the police officer, who witnessed the violent attack. In a review for The New York Times, Kelka Magoon found both main characters "successfully drawn" and called the novel "a book to be grappled with, challenged by, and discussed. All American Boys represents one voice-even better, two voices-in a national conversation that must continue beyond its pages."

The book arose from personal conversations between Reynolds, who is black, and Kiely, who is white. The two met on a Simon & Schuster book tour in 2013, which coincided with the news that George Zimmerman had been acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Though strangers, Reynolds and Kiely began to share their feelings, each finding the other was "as frustrated as angry and as confused as I was", as Reynolds put it. A friendship developed and the conversations continued with increasing urgency; after a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, Kiely reached out to Reynolds to propose they write a book addressing police brutality and racial profiling.

The book won the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award from the We Need Diverse Books organization, as well as a Coretta Scott King Honor.

In 2016, Reynolds published As Brave As You, which won the 2016 Kirkus Prize, the 2017 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teen, the 2017 Schneider Family Book Award, and the 2017 Coretta Scott King Honor. The book describes two African-American brothers from Brooklyn who are sent to spend the summer with their grandfather in Virginia. In The Washington Post, a reviewer said, "Reynolds deftly blends humor and heart through lively dialogue and spot-on sibling dynamics."

The Track series follows a different protagonist in each novel, all of whom are members of the Defenders, an elite track team. In 2016, Reynolds published , a National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature. Reviewing Ghost in The New York Times, Kate Messner said that in his title character, Reynolds has created a protagonist "whose journey is so genuine that he's worthy of a place alongside Ramona and Joey Pigza on the bookshelves where our most beloved, imperfect characters live." Ghost was published by the Caitlyn Dlouhy imprint of Atheneum on August 30, 2016.

Three more books have followed in the series. Patina (2017) depicts another young star runner, Patina "Patty" Jones. Patty feels out of place at her nearly all-white private school. Patty and her younger sister live with their dead father's brother and his white wife because their birth mother is unable to take care of them after losing her legs due to diabetes. Critics noted the deft way the book handles many issues including teamwork and non-traditional family structures. This was the first book Reynolds had written with a female point of view. Reynolds wanted to write about the special burdens some teen girls assume in their families. In his New York Times review, Tom Rinaldi called the novel "excellent". The book was also well received by other reviewers, earning a starred review in Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Horn Book Magazine, and Booklist.

The third installment in the series, called Sunny, was released on April 10, 2018. magazine named the audiobook, narrated by Guy Lockard, one of the 13 best of 2018 to date, saying, "The whole series is a must-listen, but Sunny is a particular treat" thanks to the Lockard's portrayal of the "lolling, goofball voice" of the novel's first-person protagonist.

The fourth installment in the series, called Lu, was released October 23, 2018.

Reynolds is the author of Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2017), a novel based on the Marvel Comics' Afro-Puerto Rican teen character. Reynolds has described his ambitions for the book as similar to Jordan Peele's approach to , namely to engage the audience with systemic social issues by "distill[ing] it down to a single family." Speaking to School Library Journal, Reynolds said, "It was a trip to take these issues I care so much about and figure out what they look like as a person. What do they sound like? How do they dress? How do they act? What do they do?" Reviewing the book for the Washington City Paper, Kayla Randall said, "The result...was exceptional."

Reynolds's 2017 book, Long Way Down, is a novel written in verse. It describes a 15-year-old who sees his brother shot to death, drawing on Reynolds's experience of having a friend murdered when Reynolds was 19. Reynolds was moved to write the book by his visits to juvenile detention centers, where he frequently encounters children caught in a cycle of violence that, under slightly different circumstances, might have been his own: Reynolds has said that after his own friend's murder, he and other friends planned to seek revenge but never did so as the perpetrator wasn't conclusively identified, something he looked back on and "realized how lucky that was." Long Way Down was named a 2018 Newbery Honor book by the American Library Association, a Printz Honor Book, best young adult work at the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards, a Walter Dean Myers Award from the We Need Diverse Books organization, a Coretta Scott King Honor, and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens. An adaptation by Martine Kei Green-Rogers of Long Way Down was commissioned by the Kennedy Center and performed at the Kennedy Center's Family Theater in October/November 2018.

In October 2020, a graphic novel addition of Long Way Down was published with art by Danica Novgorodoff.

Reynolds and psychologist Manfred Günther, Library Festival Berlin 2018

On April 10, 2018, Reynolds released For Every One, a work of poetry. He originally performed the poem at the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial at the Kennedy Center. Two weeks later, Reynolds occupied three slots on The New York Times best-seller lists for children's literature: two on the young adult hardcover list ( Long Way Down and For Every One), and one on the children's series list for the Track series.

"Ten Things I've Been Meaning to Say to You"

Reynolds published a list for teenagers with 10 things he thought they should know about life and their futures. It was posted on May 28, 2018, on Powell's Book Blog.

Look Both Ways was published on October 8, 2019. The story is told across ten blocks in different perspectives as middle schoolers walk home from school. On the day of its release, Look Both Ways became a finalist for the National Book Award and later made the New York Times Best Sellers List. Jason Reynolds explained that he wanted to explore kids' autonomy in this book, saying, "It is a time when they are unsupervised" and they "get to learn about the world on their own, for better or for worse." He won the 2021 Carnegie Medal for the book.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Reynolds at the National Book Festival in 2022

Reynolds announced Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You in August 2019 in collaboration with Ibram X. Kendi. Releasing in March 2020, Reynolds' book is an adaptation of Kendi's book Stamped from the Beginning, which won the National Book Award in 2016. The book is for teens and young adults and serves to start a conversation among them about race and racism in America. Reynolds says, "I think that we have a rare opportunity to give the historical context of how we made it here today. This is the definitive history of race in America from the 1400s to today. It isn't about how to fix it per se. It's just about contextualizing why it is the way it is."

In 2021, Reynolds, alongside Kendi and Sonja Cherry-Paul, published Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You, which was illustrated by Rachelle Baker. The book is a New York Times best seller.

Tomi Adeyemi, 21st-century African-American young adult novelist

Eve Ewing, 21st-century African-American poet and scholar of education

Ronald L. Smith, 21st-century African-American children's book author

Javaka Steptoe, 21st-century African-American children's book author and illustrator

Angie Thomas, 21st-century African-American young adult novelist

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Jason Reynolds (born December 6, 1983) is an American author of novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audience. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in neighboring Oxon Hill, Maryland, Reynolds found inspiration in rap and had an early focus on poetry, publishing several poetry collections before his first novel in 2014, When I Was The Greatest, which won the John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

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A Long Way Down book review by Sofia Brosutti

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Listen to this episode from Book reviews on Spotify. This is my review for A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

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Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of many award-winning books, including Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks and more.