Nineteen Minutes Reading Response

            Nineteen Minutes

Boom! Boom! Shots were fired at Sterling High School. In my independent reading book, Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, a school shooting occurred at Sterling High School. I’m not so far into the book yet but so far, this shooting happened and it made me wonder, how does a school shooting affect people?  Will this make people uncomfortable everywhere they go?

In the book, many people were wounded or even found dead in the school after the incident. I feel that after this whole problem that the students and staff at the school won’t feel safe at the school, knowing that you don’t really know what is running through anybody’s head. With the accused shooter, Peter Houghton his mom said the same thing. She said that everything was just fine and that she would have never suspected this. This also made me wonder, how does Peter’s mom feel about this? How will everyone else react towards her? On page 53, one of the detectives said, “She didn’t look like a person who’d created a monster,” To me this shows how people are feeling towards her or that, people will be giving her mean looks for giving birth to a boy that was shooting in the school. But, who knew this was going to happen today? No one knew, not even his mom.

Another thing I wondered is that, Was Peter bullied in school? Did he hate somebody in the school so much that this issue occurred? On page 57, it stated, “He’s the only victim that’s been shot twice. Once in the gut, once in the head.” What did this person do to Peter that this person was the only one shot twice? So many questions were flying through my head when I read this. Peter must have had something against this person, or hated this person most of all.

To sum it up, an incident like this affects everyone that was there, heard about it, or lost loved ones. In the book, everyone was affected in a way, even the shooters mother. Even still lots of questions run through my head. What made Peter decide to do this?  

Summer Reading Book

Over the summer, I read the book; A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, in the book there was a lot of change in setting a major conflict that affected the main characters life. Throughout the book, the main character, Salva went through a lot from when he was young to when he became older.

          In the book, Salva goes through many different settings throughout the book. He has been all over southern Sudan, trying to get to Ethiopia. During his long journey Salva didn’t have his family along by his side. He was in a group traveling with a lot of strangers for a while. He had to learn how to support himself because no one would really pay him any mind since, the group thought that he was just another mouth to feed, no one really cared much for him. Also through his long journey, Salva was searching for his family the whole time, with no hope. Through the change of settings, they all affected Salva differently. He has been stung by bees in many parts of his body, walked through the dessert with very little water, and scared from when his friend was eaten by a lion on the journey.

          The main reason why Salva had to go on this long journey was for safety. During that time the major conflict in his life was that there was a war going on. This war affected him mentally, because he thought that he was never going to see his family again. The war was the cause of the long journey. He was without his family since he was eleven to around seven-teen.

          To sum it up, Salva has been through a lot with his childhood. He was without his family for a while in his life. The war also affected him because of what he had to go through to finally be safe.