We Say #NeverAgain

September 15, 2018
Ruminations from student journalists in the wake of the Feb. 14, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings.Edited by two MSD teachers who themselves write of their experiences on that day, the short essays focus primarily on the students' ongoing emotional states and general observations about the decidedly mixed treatment they received in the tragedy's aftermath from the press, politicians, and over social media. These are interspersed with tributes to select individuals who performed "Extraordinary Acts" and also with photos that, being nearly all uncaptioned, provide more atmosphere than information. Young grass-roots activists will find no specific reform agenda here, though several contributors do offer savvy general advice. If some of the prose is less than stellar, there are plenty of mature, thoughtful insights to compensate: "We are navigating our way through our grief, which includes guilt," writes Carly Novell. "We can live and remember, but we can't live our lives stuck on February 14." Unlike David and Lauren Hogg's #NeverAgain (2018), this is less a coherent manifesto than a chorus of individual voices feeling pain, describing learning experiences, discovering the heady power of collective action--and expressing determination that, when it comes to real change, "it didn't happen after Columbine in 1999, but it will happen now." Debut author and editor Falkowski adds eloquent arguments for the importance of high school journalism programs and independent student-run school newspapers.Scattershot but cogent and encouraging. (MSD media awards, contributor profiles) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

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Starred review from November 15, 2018
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* From the aftermath of the February 14, 2018, school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, comes this collection that stands alone as a primary source document. A few pieces from the journalism and broadcasting faculty accompany dozens of short essays and photographs by student journalists of the Eagle Eye, the high-school newspaper and student broadcasters from WMSD-TV, the school TV station. Frank and sincere, if occasionally repetitive, the student essays capture the raw aftermath of a tragedy from the closest vantage point one can find. They examine the situation from myriad angles; a recent British transplant comes at it as a so-called outsider, while those closest to the heart of the #NeverAgain movement on Twitter examine their newfound celebrity and respond to public critiques. At the same time, it's a document about the inner workings of a high-school newspaper suddenly thrust into a spotlight far beyond what staff writers could ever have imagined. Many of the students wrestle with concerns of journalistic ethics: how to interview and write when they're too close to the subject at hand. A book like this shouldn't have to exist, and yet it does?and for that reason alone, it deserves a space in all libraries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)