Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

Only Child by Rhiannon Navin – 304 pages

Book Blurb:

Squeezed into a coat closet with his classmates and teacher, first grader Zach Taylor can hear gunshots ringing through the halls of his school. A gunman has entered the building, taking nineteen lives and irrevocably changing the very fabric of this close-knit community. While Zach’s mother pursues a quest for justice against the shooter’s parents, holding them responsible for their son’s actions, Zach retreats into his super-secret hideout and loses himself in a world of books and art. Armed with his newfound understanding, and with the optimism and stubbornness only a child could have, Zach sets out on a captivating journey towards healing and forgiveness, determined to help the adults in his life rediscover the universal truths of love and compassion needed to pull them through their darkest hours.

My Review: 4.5 stars

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Only Child is as heartbreaking as it is real. It’s a powerful novel that delicately takes us through the aftermath of a school shooting. Navin’s decision to write from the point of view of Zach, a 6-year-old who survives the shooting, proves a welcome perspective. I haven’t read a novel with a child as a narrator since Room, and I think Navin does a phenomenal job writing from his perspective. His struggle to comprehend the tragedy he has endured is very authentic to a first grader’s POV. With that being said, Zach really does have a wisdom and compassion that the adults around him lack, consumed by their own pain & oblivious to the needs of others.

Grief is complicated and everyone deals with loss in their own way. There’s no way to predict how we will react, and seeing this through the eyes of a child is truly heartbreaking. Zach really does have a wisdom and compassion that the adults around him lack, consumed by their own pain & oblivious to the needs of others. I love that he uses his art to sort through his feelings by giving each one a color, and the lessons he learns from his Magic Tree House books. And it turns out that the simple lessons of kindness, empathy and forgiveness, as simple and obvious as they may seem, are exactly what his broken family needs to survive.

In the actual school shootings that have occurred in recent years, it’s impossible not to be moved by the kids affected who are now fighting to achieve changes to the laws to make schools safer. Navin made an interesting choice to not focus the mom’s vengeance on gun reform, but rather shift the blame of the shooting on the parents of the shooter. The fact that everyone also knows the shooter, who is the son of the beloved security guard (ironic in itself), makes for an interesting twist as well.

Overall, I thought this book was a phenomenal read. It’s a hard subject to get through, but one that’s also a reality. Definitely a book I will recommend to others by an author with a great future ahead of herself.

Quotes I liked:

Lonely is when you want to be with someone instead, and it’s a sad feeling. Alone doesn’t have to be bad, because you can feel good when you’re alone. We decided we both like that sometimes, to be alone.”