19 minutes, by jodi picoult

 

           The setting of the story is in a small town in New Hampshire called Sterling.  The main character Peter Houghton was a target of bullying ever since early in his childhood, and it followed him all the way until high school.  It started way back in kindergarten in an incident where he had his lunchbox thrown out of the window of the school bus.  Peter’s childhood best friend, Josie, would stick up for him until she started to become part of the “popular crowd.”  Once Josie started dating a jock named Matt their friendship ended completely.  Matt and his jock friends would tease Peter and constantly call him a “homo” which led him to question his sexual orientation.  The bullying just got worse when Peter approached Josie one day to ask her for a favor.  Matt became jealous and ended up beating up Peter until he bled and cried.  Peter was not very close with his parents, so he had no one to turn to about his ongoing problem.  The last straw was when Matt and his friend pulled down Peter’s pants in front of everyone in the school cafeteria. 

                  Approximately a month later is when crazy events started to unfold in Sterling.  First, Peter placed a bomb inside of Matt’s car.  When the bomb went off, it distracted all of the students in the school.  While the students were distracted is when Peter started shooting.  Peter’s main targets were Matt and his friends.  He ended up killing nine students, one teacher, and wounding nineteen others.  Peter was put in jail and later had a court hearing to determine his fate.  Peter admitted that the endless bullying was his motivation for the shooting.  He said, “It had to stop.”

                  This book shows how bullying can cause a kid to go crazy a commit a terrible act of school violence.  There were so many different incidents of him being bullied and one day he just had enough.  The backlash of his bullying caused him to go on a shooting rampage.  The school violence that was started by Peter resulted in many lives being lost and many other students being wounded.  Peter even admits that the endless bullying was his motivation, and he stated that it needed to stop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bVZQvy0vN8