School Shooting...

SHOOTER by Walter Dean Myers is a novel about a shooting at Madison High School. The story is revealed through a series of interviews, newspaper articles, police reports/files, and the medical examiner's report, and the killer's journal. Leonard Gray (white, 16) is a teen outsider. Not accepted by any peer group--whether the decision was his or theirs--he forms his own group--primarily with his best friend Cameron Porter (African-American, 17) and his girlfriend, Carla Evans (white, 18). Although both Carla and Cameron notice signs--many signs--that Leonard is more than a little off, they ignore the signs because Leonard consistently accepts them for who they are--and he just "understands" them. So Leonard is able to talk them into doing things that they don't quite like doing--such as going to the shooting range, and shooting brown bag targets in the woods (that they later found out where turtles from the pet store), and he even convinces Cameron to vandalize a church with him. Cameron admits he knew it was wrong at the time he was doing it--but he goes along with Leonard. The story is told primarily through interviews--like I mentioned--with Cameron and Carla. The account is not necessarily chronological either. It's not until the very end that the reader is able to place certain events in the order that they happened. The climax of the book obviously is when Cameron reveals how the events of the shooting happened....2 were killed (1 murdered; 1 suicide) and at least 5+ were injured. It's not your typical novel. The reader knows at the beginning that the shooting has occurred. And the novel is essential a report file on whose fault it was, if it was preventable, and how much risk is the school in for future occurrences of violence.