more from Peter Johnson

An unnamed sixteen-year-old is the narrator of this impressionistic and fragmented story of two brothers who learn that the disappearance of their father is only the tip of his mystery and only a sliver of what really happened.

Honors

Best New Books for the Classroom —Book Links

Books for the Teen Age —NYPL

Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, Grades 7-12 — Passaic County Community College Poetry Center

Book of the Year for Rhode Island High Schools —The Alliance for the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature (ASTAL)

A Highly Recommended Book —Boston Authors Club

Missouri State Teachers Association, Reading Circle Program

Reviews

 “The voice that Johnson has given [the narrator]—also a poet—is breathtakingly good, each word conspiring with every other word to create an irresistibly seductive tone that is a haunting combination of sadness and fragile hope.”
     —Booklist

 “Peter Johnson, an award-winning poet, writes with unusual grace and tenderness about kids who are troubled—and occasionally baffled—by the necessity of moral choice when their lives seem to be nothing but a “combination of catastrophes and dumb decisions.” ...The voice that Johnson has given [the narrator]—also a poet—is breathtakingly good, each word conspiring with every other word to create an irresistibly seductive tone that is a haunting combination of sadness and fragile hope. Fans of Robert Cormier will welcome this similarly satisfying invitation to reflect on religion, reality, and reasons for getting out of bed in the morning.”
     —Book Links

“Well-written...compelling.”
     —Kirkus Reviews

“R [T]aut, nonlinear. ...[A] drama that will provoke ethical and philosophical questioning.”
     —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“What Happened, prose poet Johnson's first novel, is being marketed for young adult readers, and the boys' plight will surely engage them. But for older readers, What Happened is a tale of how to shape a narrative, how to knit episodes and fragments into a comprehensible account--a true account. Johnson's narrator struggles with the role of the maker, but the novelist--older and wiser, perhaps--lets loose ends be.”
     —Bloomsbury Review

“Johnson, a poet, writes with elegant sparseness that evokes the snowy Buffalo scene, the chill of the brothers' fears, and the bald bravado of the driver and his father. Like Robert Cormier's The Rag and Bone Shop, this story has staying power and deserves a wide readership. 4Q 3P”
     —Voice of Youth Advocates

“An account of an accident unfolds slowly, in lyrical prose, from the voice of an unnamed narrator.”
     —School Library Journal

“A sixteen-year-old narrator relates how he and his brother are held responsible for a hit-and-run accident actually perpetrated by their stoned rich friend. The story unfolds in a nonlinear way, with the narrator composing alternative endings for parts of his life, fragmented by his mother's death and his father's disappearance. Realistically clipped dialogue is interspersed with poetic description and introspection. CLS”
     —Horn Book Guide

“[T]his is the most gorgeously written YA of 2007, and it has a sensibility that is, well, haunting.”
     —Booklist

about the author

Peter teaches English and creative writing at Providence College and is the winner of the 2001 James Laughlin Award for his collection of prose poems, Miracles & Mortifications.His other books include Love Poems for the Millennium and Pretty Happy!, both collections of prose poems, and I'm a Man, a series of short stories.What Happened is Mr. Johnson's first young adult novel.Peter lives with his family in Providence, Rhode Island.