Whether they loved eating Totino’s pepperoni pizza rolls, collected high-end sneakers in all different colors, owned dozens of stuffed animals won from arcade claw cranes, or swung from curtains pretending to be Spider-Man, 20 American children each had a story to share.
Each life was unique–but they all ended too soon.
Twelve-year-old Taylor Cornett provided meals to cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in her hometown of Hazard, Ky.
Fearless Evan Colquitt, 17, bought a scooter with money he saved from his job at a landscaping company in Savannah, Ga., so he could travel back and forth to work.
Jamarcus Allen, 4, of Akron, Ohio, preferred eating fruit–especially oranges, strawberries, and grapes–to junk food.
The “family man,” Marty Kent, 17, of Modesto, Calif., once found $60 on the sidewalk and gave it to his nieces to split instead of initially taking a share for himself.
Aaliyah Boyer, 10, sang lyrics from Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift–whom she hoped to see in concert later this year–accompanied by her karaoke machine at home in Manheim, Pa.
In the wake of the Newtown shooting, msnbc began publishing profiles of some of the child victims of gun violence. The “Too Young to Die” series has 20 tributes now: vignettes that offer a glimpse into the lives of some of the American children killed by guns in the days and weeks since the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre at Sandy Hook.









