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Book Review
Why Did They Ban This Book?
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
For Mother’s Day this year, my daughter gave each of the moms in attendance a book. Each one had the same distinction — it had appeared on a recent list of banned books. The book I received was Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. According to PEN America, for the 2023–2024 school year, it was the number one most frequently banned book having been banned 98 times.
The American Library Association also puts out a list of the 100 “most frequently challenged” books of each decade. The most recent list is for 2010–2019 and Nineteen Minutes is number twenty-three.
This book was written in 2007 and is the story of a school shooting. The main characters are Josie Cormier and Peter Houghton. The author takes us back and forth in time from their childhood, through the day of the shooting, and then forward to its aftermath.
As the book opens, Josie and Peter are high school students who were friends virtually since birth, but who now find themselves in totally different social groups. She is one of the most popular girls while he is the #1 most bullied misfit.
We see from Josie’s point of view how difficult it is to hold on to popularity. This being the case, even though she is sympathetic to the treatment…
