Cox’s Children Under Fire: An American Crisis lays bare the human cost of things that cannot be counted when it comes to children and gun violence. Statistics on this issue have become so familiar that many Americans have become numb to the society they describe. On average, one child is shot every hour; over the past decade roughly 30,000 children and teenagers have been killed by gunfire — recently eclipsing cancer as their second-leading cause of death.

Children Under Fire explores the effects of gun violence on American children. It delves into gun suicide, campus lockdowns and school security, and other gun-related issues, but at its heart lie the stories of specific children. What comes across with tragic clarity is that kids suffer terrible collateral costs from gun violence — and that suffering is too often overlooked.

Children Under Fire examines gun violence in America, focusing on how it is threatening our nation’s children ...Statistics can be mind-boggling; thankfully, Cox doesn’t overload his book with factoids. Yet he includes two stats: during every hour of the day a child is shot; during this past decade, over 30,000 youngsters and teens have been killed by guns.

Children Under Fire illustrates the devastating, long-term effects of gun violence on children who lose loved ones. Washington Post reporter Cox dutifully shares gun-control statistics that have become wearily familiar, but he also zooms in to examine the personal impact of gun violence on a few specific kids. By some measures, the traumas suffered by the children Cox profiles are fairly (and horrifyingly) mundane, the kind of small-scale gun violence that doesn’t get national headlines. Yet children like Ava and Tyshaun will be grappling with the emotional fallout for the rest of their lives, and their experiences are mirrored by hundreds of thousands of other kids across the country. Children Under Fire is a difficult but important book, refusing to allow its readers to look away from the true human cost of America’s continued failure to protect its children from gun violence..

... absorbing.

Cox debuts with a hard-hitting report on the impact of gun violence on American children. Noting that, on average, a child is shot every hour in the U.S. and that 30,000 kids and teenagers have been killed by guns in the last 10 years, Cox argues that America is in the midst of a public health crisis.

Cox draws from extensive data and from poignant stories.

In a stellar debut, Cox expands his Washington Post series on the invisible wounds of children damaged by gun violence, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.