Tommy - Paperback

by Karen Blumenthal (Author)

The fascinating and topical nonfiction story of how one gun changed American courtrooms, streets, and homes, told for a YA audience by award-winning author Karen Blumenthal

John Taliaferro Thompson had a mission: to develop a lightweight, fast-firing weapon that would help Americans win on the battlefield. His Thompson submachine gun could deliver a hundred bullets in a matter of seconds--but didn't find a market in the U.S. military. Instead, the Tommy gun became the weapon of choice for a generation of bootleggers and bank-robbing outlaws, and became a deadly American icon. Following a bloody decade--and eighty years before the mass shootings of our own time--Congress moved to take this weapon off the streets, igniting a national debate about gun control.

Critically-acclaimed author Karen Blumenthal, author of Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History, and Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929, reveals the fascinating illustrated story of this famous and deadly weapon--of the lives it changed, the debate it sparked, and the unprecedented response it inspired in Tommy: The Gun That Changed America.

Praise for Tommy: The Gun that Changed America:
"The Thompson rapid-firing submachine gun is the crux of Blumenthal's accessible social history, which encompasses military weaponry, gangster warfare, and gun-control legislation. . . . Engrossing and grisly." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Blumenthal's fascinating biography of the weapon is most dramatic in its chapters on the famous gangsters. . . . Lively prose, well-selected photographs, and thorough source notes round out this fine work. A gripping look at guns, gangsters, and finding the 'right balance between individual freedoms and community safety.'" --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Author Biography

Karen Blumenthal (1959-2020) was a financial journalist and editor whose career included five years with The Dallas Morning News and twenty-five with The Wall Street Journal--where her work helped earn the paper a Pulitzer Prize for its breaking news coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks--before becoming an award-winning children's non-fiction book writer.

Three of her books, Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History, Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different, and Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, were finalists for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award.

Karen was also the author of Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929 (named a Sibert Honor Book), Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX (winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award), Tommy: The Gun That Changed America, Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend, and Jane Against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights.