Essay/Term paper: Shoot the teacher

Essay, term paper, research paper:  World Literature

Shoot The Teacher

By: David Belbin

During the couple of days that pass in this book, lots of things happen. A boy
in his mid teens becomes to heavy a burden for his mother to carry. She kicks
him out. Her divorced husband gets to take care of Adam. Adam and his father,
who Adam calles Simon, move to a new place with a new school where Simon is a
teacher. The very first day they're involved in a shooting. But there is more to
come! Three people are shot and killed in only a few days. There are many
theories of hwo comitted the killings. Simon is the main suspect, however he's
found innocent. Instead the find that the murderer is Adam's only friend Naomi,
who was the stepdaughter of the first victim.

Adam is in the beginning of the book a rebellious young man. The typical
teenager in revolt. He's growing his hair long, refusing to go to school and
talking back to his mother. He seemes to calm down quite a bit though in just a
few days. As a matter of fact, as soon they arrive at the new school, Adam
seemes to be more mature and calm. Maybe that's because he doesn't have any
friends in the new school, maybe because he feels inferior being the new kid and
outsider that he is.

Adam's relationship to his father seemes to vary a lot. At first Adam looks at
his father as if he was a perfect stranger.And he has all rights to do that
since they practicly hadn't seen each other att all since Adam was born. Then
some kind of a father-son friendship evolves, but I get the feeling that it's
only because they feel they have to. When Simon is accused of murder, Adam
starts to hate him. Perhaps stop caring about it, is a better way of describing
Adam's feelings towards his dad.

The author used a technique with many enviromental descriptions. He didn't use a
lot of fancy words, probably because it is a youth book. I am amazed by the
number of times the author used the verb shrug. At least once every other page.
The plot is well written so that you can't tell who the murderer is until the
very last page, or at least the last chapter.

I usually don't like this kind of books. Actually I don't like books at all. I
enyojed this one though. Once I got started reading it, I could hardly put it
down.