One Year in Uvalde: A Story of Hope and Resilience

Television journalists Quiñones (Heroes Among Us) and Salinas (I Am My Father’s Daughter) offer a moving yet insufficiently contextualized look at a bereaved community. Following the 2022 murders of 19 fourth-grade students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., producer Cindy Galli suggested that, rather than pull up stakes soon after the killings, an ABC news crew “commit to six months to a year to tell the stories of the families and the community.” Her idea was implemented, and the authors, along with support staff, embedded themselves in the grieving city and patiently worked to establish bonds with parents who’d lost their children and others affected by the massacre. The book’s strongest sections center on the harrowing, in-depth reflections the authors elicited from shooting victims. They include Arnie Reyes, a teacher whose entire class was killed, and 10-year-old Noah Orona, who witnessed the murder of his friends. The authors also loosely chronicle the massacre’s political aftermath, including an unsuccessful push for Texas gun control measures and the search for answers over a delayed law-enforcement response. Despite the authors’ care and thoughtfulness, Galli’s pitch that “the narrative is not in the shooting” but instead “the real story is in the recovery” never stops feeling like a misdirection away from accountability. This unsophisticated approach will leave readers unsatisfied. (May)