Please Pay Attention, by Jamie Sumner
From the publisher, Atheneum Books for
Young Readers: available April 2025
A girl with cerebral palsy
navigates loss, grief, and the aftermath of trauma following a school shooting
in a world that wasn’t built for her in this deeply affecting novel in verse
from Jamie Sumner, the acclaimed author of Roll with It.
There is a Before and an
After for eighth grader Bea Coughlin. Before the shooting at her school that
took the lives of her classmates and teacher and After, when she must figure
out how to grieve, live, and keep rolling forward. But as her community rallies
in a tidal wave of marches and speeches and protests, Bea can’t get past the
helplessness she felt in her wheelchair as others around her took cover.
Through the help of
therapeutic horseback riding, Bea finally begins to feel like herself again.
And as she heals, she finds her voice and the bravery to demand change
I’m not sure I have the
right words or enough words for this story. The awful reality of a school
shooting based on an actual event in Nashville. We’re right beside Bea, pre,
during, and post. Her struggle is ours; her healing helps us, too. Beautifully
and pretty perfectly written, it grabs your heart as you travel this difficult
journey with these incredible and very real characters.
This is such an important
book on so many levels. It’s like the last review I posted, it should be read
by everyone. I can’t imagine living through a school shooting, and it’s so sad
that an enormous amount of people has. The loss, safety, reliving, processing,
trying to heal – Jamie Sumner captures it all. It’s possible to have PTSD for so
many parts of one incident.
I love that she uses
therapeutic horse riding as the right therapy for Bea. I volunteered at our
local Hearts Therapeutic Equestrian Center. They work with kids, adults,
veterans. Adaptive riding does amazing things on many levels.
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