“Nineteen Minutes”
I picked a weird time to read “Nineteen Minutes.”
Jodi Picoult’s book about a high school shooting has been out for a couple years, but I finally got a copy about a week before the 10th anniversary of Columbine.
I finished it the day before the anniversary.
Even though I stayed up late one night reading it and didn’t get out of bed the next morning until I finished it, I’m not sure what to say about the book.
Maybe I’m at a loss for words because I don’t know how to go about summarizing such a complex story.
Its themes included how we judge one another (even as adults) and bullying.
Predictably, the teen shooter is motivated by lifelong teasing and torment from his classmates.
It was a little hard for me to swallow how mean the shooter’s classmates were to him, but perhaps that’s because I wasn’t tormented in high school or hadn’t witnessed such behavior.
Even so, I would recommend this book to students with the hopes they could realize how — however joking the intent — damaging teasing and bullying can be.
