Johnny Get Your Gun

After John Ball's previous novels (In The Heat of the Night & The Cool Cottontail) featuring detective Virgil Tibbs his third outing is another fine story. This time Tibbs is trying to find a nine year old boy who has taken his father's loaded gun in order to shoot another child. For a novel written......more

I listened to this book free through audiobooksync.com as part of their free YA program to keep teens reading in the summer. Although an interesting story, this one bothered me and I think part of that is because I listened to the audio book. There were multiple uses of the words n*gger, colored, and......more

Third in the series and far superior to the second. Virgil Tibbs is yet again a strong, opinionated, self controlled anchor for the story, but the characters revolving around him are a wonder. Few times have written words moved me to tears, but the absolutely heartbreaking description of the - by to......more

Johnny, a young white boy whose family only recently moved from Tennessee to Pasadena in hopes of a better future, is heartbroken and enraged when an older boy takes and breaks his beloved transistor radio. Johnny's racist father has taught his son to always fight back when he is wronged, so Johnny......more

First recommended to me by a student several years ago, this book shows how bullying can lead to the unthinkable. Set in southern California in the early 1970's, the story touches on racial tensions as Johnny's dad has difficulty accepting the authority of an African American detective.......more