"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.br>     —Booklist/Booklinks

"Well-written...compelling."
     —Kirkus Reviews

"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."
     —Voice of Youth Advocates

"[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

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