👍🤷‍♂️Please Pay Attention (2025)

By Jamie Sumner

4Rbooks                                          4/6                                  grades         6-8

Amazon                                           4.6/5                              reading level  10 years +

Goodreads                                       4.32/5          

Common Sense Media               Not yet reviewed

223 pages

Synopsis

            Every day Bea looks forward to connecting with her “little” buddy Josie to help her walk into school.  Josie is shy and timid and Bea (short for Beatrix) is her 6^th grade assigned pal. Bea sits and waits in her wheelchair until Josie joins her and they enter school together.

            State tests are coming soon and Bea, with the help of her teacher Mrs. Canelli, is practicing and getting ready. One day while working on the practice tests everyone hears a series of “pops.” The alarm quickly spreads, there’s a shooter on campus. The children are secured and escorted out of the building. Bea is in a panic worried about Josie, her friends, and desperately looking for Max, her guardian and the school nurse.

            News comes out later that there were fatalities: 3 children, a janitor, and Bea’s teacher were killed. The school, the neighborhood, and the community are shocked.  What do they do? How do they heal? How do they better protect themselves.

            Bea struggles with post-traumatic stress. Max signs her up for horse riding therapy which helps to calm her nerves and feel more comfortable with everything she is thinking and feeling. Bea finally puts all of her emotions into a letter to the governor, which is the book.

Parental Guidelines:    medium-high

Bea survives a school shooting and must process her trauma. The shooting is not depicted in a graphic way, but the details are difficult and emotional (seeing and remembering the shoe on the floor of the teacher who was killed).

Bea’s post trauma is real and accurately portrayed in a kid friendly way but is difficult and emotional. Sensitive readers may struggle with her struggles.

Bea suffers from cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair which adds to her post trauma of not being able to escape the shooting.

Bea’s mother died soon after childbirth and one of her NICU nurses became her guardian.

Bea and Max’s neighbors are a gay couple, Aaron and Lucius who goes by Lucy.

Bea’s letter to the governor and the author’s afterward advocate for tighter and stricter gun laws.

Bea and Max go to church and Bea attends a Christian school, but Bea’s opinion about church and church speakers at her school is that they are boring and she would rather be somewhere else.

Recommendation

             This was a very poignant and personal book loosely inspired by the events at The Covenant School in Nashville Tennessee on March 27, 2023. The school administrator who was killed, Katherine Koonce, was a personal friend of the author. Ms. Sumner chose to make Bea a child with cerebral palsy because she has a child with the condition.

            I liked this book and at times, couldn’t put it down. It’s written in verse which not everyone likes, but I’ve come to enjoy the succinctness of the story telling and ability to emphasize specific sentences and phrases as needed. It is also written as one long letter to the governor.

I’m recommending the book, but with reservations. The subject matter is hard emotionally and can be politically charged. It is a tough read for a variety of reasons, and very emotional as Bea deals with her life before, during, and after the shooting. Then there is the post-trauma that comes after as she and her guardian Max try to pick up the pieces. Horse riding therapy is a big help.

For Bea and the author, the ultimate answer is to pass stricter and tighter gun legislation. I won’t discuss my own personal views except to say that as a former teacher, I’m in favor of school security officers, especially an assigned police officer.  Have one on campus for protection, but also to set an example for the students (read with them, play at recess, help with projects) and to act as a liaison between the children, the families, and the community building better relationships with the police.

My biggest complaint with the book is that even though Bea and Max go to church and Bea attends a Christian school, faith is never a part of their process of healing. There isn’t even a section where they question God or get angry. As a Christian, I know I couldn’t get through an event like this, or to be there for others, without turning to my faith for help and guidance.