Polished Response for Give a Boy a Gun

“Stick and stone can break my bones but words can never hurt me.” We have all heard this cute little rhyme since we were little kids, the problem is, we were little then. Nowadays, big kids, say high school aged kids and teenagers, are finding sticks and stones more desirable. The way our society treats those who are not the best looking and do not have the most expensive clothes is a testament to the falseness of our grade school nursery rhymes.
In Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser, we follow the story of two boys from grade school to the day they attack a school dance with assault rifles and bombs. The story is very vivid. Strasser shows, in shocking reality, today’s teen society and its ability to down the weak and the “uncool.” The story is about Brendan, a boy who moves from another school, where he is highly regarded and a “cool” kid, to Middleton midway through his seventh grade year. When he moves he meets Gary, a very smart, melancholic boy with serious depression issues and a sad family life. Brendan and Gary become fast friends. During the 7th grade they begin to figure out, and hate, the class structure that will eventually put them at the bottom and make them virtually outcasts. The book does an excellent job giving stories and examples of what led to this and their eventual school shooting.
Today’s culture has become entirely focused on “me”, the individual. We will do whatever it takes to become “cool.” This effects how people choose their friends now too. If you are not pretty, funny or have a lot of money then you are simply something less than those who are. Todd Strasser does a good job of pointing out this grievous error and forces us teenagers to look in the mirror and think about how we treat other people. The best way to fix today’s extreme bullying problem is not to have “Stick and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me” drilled into our heads, but rather “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”