Of the 918 Americans who died in the shocking murder-suicides of November 18, 1978 in the tiny South American country of Guyana, a third were under age 18, and more than half were in their 20s or younger.

The powerful stories told in And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown begin in San Francisco at the small school where Reverend Jim Jones enrolled the teens of his Peoples Temple church in 1976. Within a year, most of these kids had joined Jones and his other congregants in what Jones promised was a tropical paradise based on egalitarian values, but which turned out to be a deadly prison camp. Set against the turbulent backdrop of the late 1970s, And Then They Were Gone draws from interviews, books, and articles—many of the stories told here for the first time.

The authors were teachers at Opportunity High, the alternative school where Jones enrolled the Temple teens. Bebelaar and Cabral were named San Francisco Library Laureates, 2019, and the book has won seven other honors and awards, including three first prizes, from Northern Callfornia publishers and authors (General Nonfiction) and Royal Dragonfly Book awards (Historical Nonfiction and Other Nonfiction). The book has also won awards in the fields of sociology and young adult fiction.