BUZZ BOOK: A school-shooting novel that’s devastating and timely

“Only Child” by Rhiannon Navin (Knopf) is a heartbreakingly timely novel about an elementaryschool shooting. Narrated by 6-year-old Zach, the book begins with him hiding in a closet with his teacher and first-grade classmates, trying to stay quiet while they hear the sounds of gunfire in the hallway outside. Because he is only 6, he doesn’t understand what’s going on outside, only that it is terrible. Later, after Zach and his class escape to safety and he is reunited with a frantic mother and father, he realizes that his older brother Andy did not make it out of the school. The shooter was the son of the school security guard.

In the weeks that follow the shooting, Zach watches his mom and dad try to navigate their grief and anger. TV crews come into his house to interview his mother. His parents fight, and his mom makes plans to sue the killer’s parents while the dad retreats behind work. Life lurches on. The fact that the book is told through the eyes of a child makes it all the more moving and resonant. “It was wrenching to learn about the shooting in Parkland. Every parent of school-age children lives with this fear, and I wrote ‘Only Child’ as a way of dealing with the fear I have for my own three young children,” says author Navin (pictured). “I think it’s more important now than ever that we write and read about what scares us the most. One of the things I explore in the book is how we need to listen to our children and take action to support them, to help create a safer future for them. I hope that is finally happening. The voices of our children are being heard.”