Review: Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose

Book: Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
Genre: a play (I can't think what that's officially called for genre purposes!)
Rating: ****
For: Keeping up with the 7th grader
From: the 7th grader's backpack

When I found out my 7th grader was reading this for school, and that I'd never heard of it, and then teacher at parent teacher conferences looked at me askance, I decided I better read it. It's TINY, so it took me about an hour last Sunday evening to get through it, and it was fun!

This is a story written in script form about 12 men on a jury in the 50s, who convene in the jury room to discuss and decide on the case of a young teenager being tried for murdering his dad. When things begin, 11 of the 12 are convinced the kid is guilty and only one juror, the 8th, says, "Hey, shouldn't we think things out here?"

Then begins a fascinating discussion as they go through the evidence and how the 8th juror uses his smarts to rebut every piece of it. Slowly but surely, he convinces every last one of the jurors to change their minds. (Sorry spoiler I suppose!)

It's a fun little look into human behavior, the power of persuasion, following the crowd or standing up for something... those sorts of things, not to mention the process of a trial by jury and the "without a doubt" clause and innocent until proven guilty.

All good things for 7th graders, and the rest of us, to learn!

Very fun little piece to read and something different to squeeze in between my paranormals and fantasies! Weird that I've never heard of it... have you?

There's a pretty famous (I guess) movie that's been done and the whole thing can be found on YouTube here if you are interested. Perhaps I'll watch it one of these days.