Remember on April 20, 1999 when everyone saw on the news about two high school students shooting their own classmates? Ever wondered why or how two students succeeded in killing many people at a school that it became known as a massacre? Well guess what, Dave Cullen, the author of the book Columbine, wrote about the Columbine high school massacre.
Dave Cullen did an excellent job researching about what happened before, during, and after the tragic event. It is a 382 page book (some notes after page 382, but who read those?) full of details about the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, I think Dave may have interviewed people that were involved investigating in the case. There are copies taken from both Eric's and Dylan's journals that they wrote and Dave copied them in the book (look towards the back).
Finally, I became interested in reading about the Columbine shooting when a Columbine survivor visited my school and he shared about his experience and how he lost his older sister in the tragic shooting. Since then I have seen videos about Columbine on YouTube (including the Basement Tapes). In case if you were wondering if I was around during that time, my answer is yes, I was in elementary school when it happened so I don't remember how my family and I were after we found out about the shooting.
Trivia Questions: 1) after the school shooting, Eric's and Dylan's journals were found, what was the significant difference between their journals? 2) Since Eric and Dylan did write in journals, which one was considered depressed and the other one a psychopath?
Besides Dave Cullen writing his book Columbine, Dylan's Klebold's mother wrote a book about her version on how her life was turned upside down when she found what her son did on April 15, 1997! The title of Sue Klebold's book is called A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy. It is a very personal story about what the Klebold family went through after they found out about Dylan.
My thoughts about the book is that I do admire Sue Klebold to finally write about her point of view of what happened after the massacre. I think it did take a lot of guts and bravery for Sue Klebold to tell her story about what a great son Dylan was to her before she was awarded as the World's Worst Mother from all the families whose children were affected by the shooting. Overall, Sue Klebold just wanted the world to know about how much she loved her son, Dylan, how sorry she is about the shooting, and that she was a mother who was a victim to lose her son along with the families who lost their son or daughter during the shooting.
Trivia questions: 1) What was Sue Klebold's biggest regret that she should have done to help Dylan before he helped Eric with the Columbine shooting? 2) How did Sue Klebold find out that Dylan had depression?
Ok one more book (which is fiction) that is called Nineteen Minutes written by Jodi Picoult. This is one of my favorite book that she has written. It is about a boy named Peter Houghton who did commit a violent crime of shooting inside of his school and he has to stand trial. The daughter of the judge who is taking the case, Josie Cormier, was affected by the shooting that she will not talk.
Mainly, the book is full of plot twists and unexpected relationships between the main characters. It is a book that I could not put down, all the characters each tell their own point of view about the school shooting that Patrick had committed. Jodi Picoult did a phenomenal job of character development and plot twists, I really wish that someone would make a movie out of this book.
Trivia Questions: 1) who killed Josie's boyfriend? Josie or Peter? 2) What was Peter's verdict?
Bonus: Josie and Peter were once best friends, what happened to make them grow apart?
Nineteen Minutes is one of Jodi Picoults older books so please don't think it is written like her latest book Small Great Things.
Cullen, David. Columbine. New York, NY: Twelve, 2009. Print.
Klebold, Sue. A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2016. Print.
Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen minutes: a novel. New York, NY: Atria Books, 2007. Print.
I want to put citations in my blogs to show credit to the author(s) and editor(s) who published the book. The description above are my words.
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