Please Pay Attention

March 1, 2025
Grades 5-8 Eighth-grader Beatrix is supposed to be focused on school and her kindergarten buddy (Josie) and what color to dye her hair next, but when a school shooting leaves her life turned upside down, she must rediscover her bravery and sense of control. Before the shooting, Bea has her life on lock. But one day in class, Bea hears gunshots, and when it comes time to get down . . . she can't. Bea's relationship with her wheelchair and the confines of indoor spaces shifts in a second, and only through equine therapy and a lot of love is she able to work toward feeling safe again. Told through a frame narrative that will resonate deeply with audiences, this novel in verse invites the reader to feel Bea's every emotion while still rooting for the growth we know is coming. Well-paced with care taken in more sensitive scenes, this is a must-read book for fans of Erin Bow's Simon Sort of Says (2023) and Barbara Dee.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 15, 2025
A school shooting survivor with cerebral palsy struggles to heal. A year after a shooting at her school, Beatrix Coughlin recounts the days before and after the tragedy in present-tense letters in verse. At home, Bea and her adoptive mom, Maxine, are supported by Lucius, their kindhearted neighbor, and his husband, Aaron. As a sixth grade Buddy to a Little at Cedar Crest Presbyterian, Bea learns card tricks to cheer up Josie Garcia, a kindergartener with anxiety. But after the shooting, neither home nor school feels safe--especially because Bea, who uses a wheelchair, couldn't run or hide. Plagued by nightmares and terrified of loud noises, Bea feels like "a person / who cannot save herself." But if she can't save herself, how can she help when it seems like "everybody is fighting for change" to gun control laws? Sumner, who based the story on a school shooting in her Nashville community, poignantly portrays the devastation that gun violence wreaks while leaving room for hope. While she doesn't sugarcoat Bea's terror, grief, or post-traumatic stress, the verse format allows readers to process the events piece by piece, tempering the vivid emotional imagery. Bea's gradual improvement via equine therapy and Max's emphatic support are heartening, and readers will root both for Bea's recovery and for adults in power to "please pay attention / and then / act." Bea and Max are implied white, and there's racial diversity among the secondary characters. Heart-wrenching yet hopeful. (author's note)(Verse fiction. 10-14)

COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from March 28, 2025

Gr 5-8-After a tragic event traumatizes her school community, sixth grader and wheelchair user Bea is racked with guilt, anxiety, and grief. Unable to sleep or speak to her mom about it, Bea is stuck in a cycle of reliving the tragedy, feeling that she could have done more to protect her classmates and her teacher. It isn't until Bea starts equine therapy, a program that uses horse care and riding as a path to working through emotional or behavioral problems, that she is able confront her trauma and begin the healing process. Written as a letter advocating for gun control, Bea frames her story as a journey from trauma to hope, as well as a plea for action. Drawn from Sumner's personal connection to the 2023 Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Bea's experience contains an emotional depth and authenticity that resonates deeply without feeling preachy. The verse novel format enhances the pacing, using line breaks and poem length to mirror Bea's fluctuating emotional state. The poems are raw and honest, yet never overly focused on the tragedy itself. The secondary characters are equally well developed, supporting Bea in her quest for courage and peace. VERDICT This heartfelt exploration of trauma, recovery, and the search for light in the darkest of times will resonate with middle school readers, offering a meaningful reflection on personal and societal healing. An excellent addition to middle grade verse novel collections.-Louie Lauer

Copyright 2025 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2025
In a series of entries in verse, sixth grader Bea Coughlin narrates the story of something important she wants us to "please pay attention" to. Bea tells her story slowly, revealing characters and their relationships in a controlled way that keeps readers intrigued as they put the different pieces together. We eventually learn that she has cerebral palsy, was adopted by Max (her NICU nurse) as a baby, has a penchant for dyeing her hair funky colors and doing magic tricks, and uses a wheelchair. The novel is organized into four sections ("Seek," "Hide," "Heal," and "Hope") and unfolds starting with "ten days before." It then counts down to the day a shooter enters Bea's school. Afterward, she confronts her vulnerability as a wheelchair user, while the steadfast Max provides a much-needed counterbalance: "you are a child, / and that was a tragedy, / and we will get through this together." She slowly processes the traumatic event through writing, therapeutic horseback riding, and, eventually, activism. In a letter, Bea implores her state's governor, and indeed all of us, to "please pay attention / and then / act." An emotionally gripping story about school violence, trauma, and recovery, whose focus on disability and mobility asks important questions about common assumptions and protocols of disaster preparedness and safety. Julie Hakim Azzam

(Copyright 2025 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from February 10, 2025
In this sensorial verse novel by Sumner (Deep Water), a disabled eighth grader navigates trauma in the aftermath of a school shooting. Kind and outspoken Bea Coughlin, who lives with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, confidently advocates for disability accommodations at her small private school. When her teacher and several students are killed during a school shooting, Bea’s sense of safety crumbles (“My loosened leg brace catches/ on the footrest of my chair/ and/ it’s pinning me here!”). The novel is divided into four parts—“Seek,” “Hide,” “Heal,” and “Hope”—that showcase Bea’s life before, during, and after the event via narrative poems and letters addressed to an entity called Sir. Throughout, Bea struggles to understand the incident; intimate, lyrical verse relays her experiences, including her horseback riding therapy and feelings of claustrophobia at being indoors in the days following the shooting. It’s an accessible and cohesive interpretation of what it means to live with grief and find a way to feel like oneself after tragedy, as well as an homage to young voices and their impact on society. Bea reads as white. Ages 10–up.

January 1, 2025
In a series of entries in verse, sixth grader Bea Coughlin narrates the story of something important she wants us to "please pay attention" to. Bea tells her story slowly, revealing characters and their relationships in a controlled way that keeps readers intrigued as they put the different pieces together. We eventually learn that she has cerebral palsy, was adopted by Max (her NICU nurse) as a baby, has a penchant for dyeing her hair funky colors and doing magic tricks, and uses a wheelchair. The novel is organized into four sections ("Seek," "Hide," "Heal," and "Hope") and unfolds starting with "ten days before." It then counts down to the day a shooter enters Bea's school. Afterward, she confronts her vulnerability as a wheelchair user, while the steadfast Max provides a much-needed counterbalance: "you are a child, / and that was a tragedy, / and we will get through this together." She slowly processes the traumatic event through writing, therapeutic horseback riding, and, eventually, activism. In a letter, Bea implores her state's governor, and indeed all of us, to "please pay attention / and then / act." An emotionally gripping story about school violence, trauma, and recovery, whose focus on disability and mobility asks important questions about common assumptions and protocols of disaster preparedness and safety.

(Copyright 2025 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)