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Shooter | LitPick Book Reviews
Shooter
Shooter
Shooter
Walter Dean Myers
Cameron, Carla, and Len were fascinated (for different reasons) with guns and target shooting at the Patriots' club range until the day Len brought his Kalashnikov rifle, his AR-18, and his Ruger pistol to school, and shot and killed football jock Brad Williams, and then himself. Here is yet another school shooting story that begins with bullying and ends with disaster--a type that is becoming almost a sub-genre of YA fiction. Yet Walter Dean Myers, winner of many awards for his young adult novels, brings freshness and new anguish to this familiar tale (and growing social problem) of unstable victim tormented by bullies to homicidal rage. Following the example of his own masterwork Monster, Myers uses different perspectives in the aftermath of the "incident" to reveal the characters and to tell the story: interviews with Cameron and Carla by The Harrison County School Safety Committee, newspaper reports, a police report, Len's handwritten "die-ary" of his deranged thoughts, and finally, a grim medical examiner's report. The contrasts and contradictions in these various perspectives challenge readers to produce their own versions of why Cameron and Carla became Len's followers and what could have prevented this tragedy and others like it in real life. (ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell

Book Details

Genre: 

  • Fiction

Age Level: 

  • 12 and up
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Shooter is an intense coming of age piece telling the story of Leonard Gray. Leonard is a troubled teen who kills himself as well as another student. Leonard's story is told through interviews of his best friend Cameron, girl friend Carla, and Leonard's personal journal. The interviews are intended to tell how the "incident" could have been prevented and how future occurences can also be prevented.

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