Book 14- Columbine

This non-fictional account of the events pre- and post- shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO reads like a novel.

Not only does Cullen provide minute by minute details of the killing of 13 people in Columbine High School, but he reveals the insides the heads of the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. These boys were cold blooded killers, and Eric Harris is depicted as a psychopath, and I believe it.

It's sad to hear the stories of the survivors, of the victim's families, about the repeated screw ups and cover ups by the local Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. Columbine shares experts of the journals from both boys.

On April 20, 1999 the two boys entered the school and killed 12 students and 1 teacher; they in injured many more, and then killed themselves. They weren't bullied; they were the bullies. They weren't part of a Goth movement; they hated the Goths. They weren't a Trench Coat Mafia; they only wore the trench coats because they thought they were cool, because they thought it made them look like "bad asses", and because they covered the weapons they were hauling into the school. Cullen dispelled so many myths associated with these boys and this shooting, making it scarier than it was already.

Their killing spree was intended to kill thousands but because the bombs didn't exploded and because they lost interest in the shooting spree, it only killed 13. It was planned for years and months and months and years in advance. It was sad. And it's best they killed themselves.

It also shows that the people of Columbine healed.

This was hard to read at time because though it read like a novel, it was real, and I remember watching it play out on my tv screen. I also remember it when I'm handed my new safety manual in the school where I teach each fall, when we practice lock down procedures, and when we have lock down drills. I still remember.

And I, like everyone else involved, would like to have the answer to "why." Well written and real, but still a sad and scary reminder of what can still happen in our schools any day, anywhere.