Booktalking "Silent Alarm" by Jennifer Banash

alarm

18-year-old Luke Aronson walked into the library of Plainewood High one day and opened fire. He killed fifteen people, wounded four, and then turned the gun on himself. He left behind a devastated community and a grief-stricken sister, Alys, and parents. Luke had been moody and subject to spells of depression, but no one expected this.

When I see you, I think of Luke, the shooter.

Alys's friends, Delilah and Ben, decide to take some distance from her.  

Your son killed my daughter.

Arianna confronts Alys' mother in a shopping mall. She is doing as well as can be expected, under the circumstances.

Luke's parents obtain lawyers in order to fight the huge sum of retributions that the community demands. Press infiltrates the family's yard. The gossip at school is hard for Alys to take. Classmates approach her and ask why her brother was a mass murderer. She has no answer for them. 

Alys cannot comprehend what drove her brother to commit such a heinous act. She remembers Luke as the guy who drew funny faces for her, the one who threw peas at her across the dinner table. She also knows that he spent days alone in his bedroom. He did not kill her, but he obliterated himself and the sense of peace that the school and community had.

Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash, 2015

Jennifer Banash's web site

Books about school shootings