A rigorous, moving book about gun violence in American schools.
A sobering guide to avoiding the tragedy of school shootings written by a librarian with personal connections to the topic.
Aponte’s book alternates among a few different modes: analysis of statistical information, direct advice, memoir, and interviews with activists. The analysis forms the heart of the book. The statistics are drawn from the author’s own substantial body of research, which covers 1,204 American school shootings from 1990 through 2019. He identifies the most common weapons used in school shootings (handguns), the motives behind school shootings (usually arguments and disputes), warning signs (often found in journals and online activity), and the relative safety of various locations within a school (most shootings take place outside.) Aponte also discusses common myths and misunderstandings about school shootings, including the ambiguity of the very definition of “mass shooting”; Aponte suggests using the term to describe “an incident in which at least four individuals are shot with a firearm, either injured or killed, including any alleged shooter(s) who may also have been shot during or immediately after the incident” (the author hopes that it will be easier to address mass shootings if we allow ourselves to see how pervasive they are). The early sections of the book are more personal: Aponte talks about his relationship with guns as both an Army brat and an airman in the U.S. Air Force, and he discusses his connection to gun-related tragedy—Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is his alma mater (though he attended many years before the shooting there), and his sister died by suicide using a gun. Referring to his own experiences throughout the text, the author renders the difficult material more engaging and resonant. The work is thoroughly researched, and Aponte makes an appeal for gun safety that will be difficult to ignore, even across political lines. Some of the writing is a little clunky—the paragraphs don’t always flow well, and the author overuses hypothetical situations to make his points. Still, the research, analysis, and heart that went into it make this short book well worth reading and sharing.
A rigorous, moving book about gun violence in American schools.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798991098953
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Owl & Scroll Publishers
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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