Book Club Guide

Look Both Ways

by Jason Reynolds · 2019 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

Ten stories, one walk home — the small worlds within a single afternoon
Childhood observed with warmth, humour and unexpected depth
Connection between strangers who don't know they're connected

About this book

Ten interconnected stories follow different groups of kids walking home from the same middle school on the same afternoon — each story a small world of its own, each connected to the others by the walk itself. Reynolds's Carnegie Medal-winning collection captures the texture of childhood and adolescence with warmth, humour and unexpected depth.

Published in 2019, Look Both Ways won the Carnegie Medal in 2021 (UK) and the Coretta Scott King Author Award. Reynolds has described the collection as inspired by his own observations of kids walking home from school and the stories he imagined for each of them.

Discussion questions

Each story follows a different group of kids on the same walk home from school. How does Reynolds create variety across these stories while maintaining a coherent whole?
The stories range from funny to quietly devastating. How does Reynolds manage these tonal shifts — and does the variety reflect something true about how childhood actually feels, moving between registers rapidly?
Some stories connect to others in small ways — characters glimpsed in one story appear in another. How does Reynolds use these connections — and what do they suggest about communities and how lives intersect without people realising?
The collection is aimed at middle-grade readers but doesn't shy from real difficulty — grief, fear, family struggle. How does Reynolds balance accessibility with genuine emotional weight?
Look Both Ways won the Carnegie Medal. What does it do that earns this recognition — and how does the short story form serve material about childhood that a single continuous narrative might not?