Richie’s Picks: PLEASE PAY ATTENTION
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: PLEASE PAY ATTENTION by Jamie Sumner, Simon & Schuster/Atheneum, April 2025, 240p., ISBN: 978-1-6659-5607-9
“The sun is set, the day is done
We laid to rest another one
A mother cries for her only son
Broken-hearted
We say a prayer, we start a fight
Don't know which to do tonight
'Cause either way, we end up right
Back where we started
No, we can't just look away
No, we can't just stay the same
No, we can't let tomorrow be another today
'Cause if we keep doing nothing
Then nothing will ever change”
– Kris Allen (2016)
“Survivor guilt…happens when individuals feel guilty after they survive a tragic, near death, or traumatic event when others perished. It can cause similar depressive symptoms associated with PTSD.”
–Wikipedia
“Boots stomp in the hall.
Ticktickticktickticktick
My watch is too loud
in my ear,
but I’m afraid to move my hands
from over my head.
I’m down on the floor,
too late.
Glass all over.
Smoke in the air.
Desks tipped sideways.
Test papers scattered like feathers.
Stop. Do not go on to the next page until told to do so.
A silver shoe
by the door.
I shut my eyes.
Everything hurts.
Under the window,
Liam is crying
and
calling for his mother.
Max!
Max downstairs in the nurse’s office.
Max! My Max.
Please be okay.
Please help me.
Please come.
MaxMaxMax,
I need you.
A knock.
I flinch.
Rani and Sally Gray scream.
‘Police! Room secure!’
I turn to the left
and glass falls off
my shoulder.
Black boots on the ground
step around a shoe
and then they are here,
kneeling in our faces.
‘Are you okay?’”
Sixth-grader Bea Coughlin is a survivor.
Born with cerebral palsy to a mother who did not survive the birthing, Bea started out life as Baby Girl #42 in the neonatal intensive care unit on the sixth floor of the children’s hospital. She spent months there, in a room with Peter Rabbit wallpaper, being fed through a stomach tube, until Max, her nurse, made a decision to become Max, her foster mom.
Max named Bea after Beatrix Potter–thanks to that Peter Rabbit wallpaper–and took her home. She eventually exchanged her nursing job for a school nurse position at the church school which Bea has attended–in her wheelchair–since kindergarten.
Bea survives the horrific school shooting that leaves five dead. But she suffers mightily from the experience. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Bea has no idea who has been shot (outside of her own classroom). A notable passage, which gives us access to her panicked thoughts and fears in the immediate aftermath, makes for one of the most nail-biting reading experiences I’ve had in a while.
In the days to come, any sudden, loud noise devastates her and sends her back to the floor. The nightmares are beyond terrible. She cannot cope with sleeping in the house (fearing being trapped), and she cannot imagine ever setting foot in the church/school again. She also suffers from survivor’s guilt, having so well known the children and adults who are no longer among the living.
PLEASE PAY ATTENTION is Bea’s powerful story of recovering–to the extent one can recover from such an experience. Fortunately, Max connects Bea with a rehab program that leads to a lot of progress and healing.
This stunning verse novel is a wakeup call. Turn on the nightly news. Every single day, it seems, there is a fifty-fifty chance that there is a piece on the day’s latest mass shooting.
It’s gotta stop, but it seems to get worse instead of better.
Between the quality of the writing–the power and emotion so well articulated by author Jamie Sumner–and the in-your-face importance of the gun issues, PLEASE PAY ATTENTION is a must-have book for school collections serving upper elementary and middle schoolers.
I’m sending a copy of this one to my little sister, who spent hundreds of hours during her tween years volunteering to work with children at our local cerebral palsy center. I was so happy to do a search and see that, all these decades later, the institution is still functioning and still welcoming volunteers. I hope that this book will inspire some young people to take advantage of such volunteer opportunities, as well as inspire them to grow up fighting for stronger gun control.
Cuz it sure as heck can’t get all that much worse. And it’s only gonna get better if we all stand up and insist that enough is enough. As Bea’s beloved teacher taught her:
“Nothing changes if nothing changes.”
Richie Partington, MLIS
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